Regime accused reporters of working for CIA, Israel Friday, April 11, 2003 Posted: 2:08 AM EDT (0608 GMT) ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Iraqi intelligence agents planned to attack CNN journalists working in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq in March, three months after Iraq's information minister warned of the "severest possible consequences" if CNN were to send reporters to the region, said CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan. The plot was uncovered by Kurdish police, who arrested two men who identified themselves as Iraqi intelligence agents. CNN has obtained videotaped confessions in which the men said their superiors in Baghdad, Iraq, asked them to blow up a hotel in Erbil where CNN staff were staying. The men planned to use nearly a ton of explosives in the attack, but they were arrested before they could carry out the plan. In their confessions, the men said they had been told that CIA and Israeli agents were working out of the hotel, using CNN as a cover. In December, Jordan said, he met with Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf to ask permission for CNN to send journalists into areas of northern Iraq that had been under Kurdish control since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. "He bristled, and he said, 'Mr. Jordan, if you send a CNN team there, the severest possible consequences will come to them,'" Jordan said. "And I said, 'What does that mean?' He just snapped back. He said, 'Don't you understand? The severest possible consequences.' It was clear he was talking about assassinating those journalists." Jordan said al-Sahaf "felt it was a violation of Iraqi sovereignty" for CNN to send journalists into northern Iraq without the approval of the Iraqi government, despite the fact that the Kurds, not the Baghdad regime, controlled the area. Jordan said al-Sahaf and other Iraqi officials had long believed that CNN journalists worked for the CIA, and a previous information minister had accused Jordan of being a CIA station chief when he was working in Iraq. "These people believe in their hearts, or at least they did, that CNN was part of the enemy regime," Jordan said. The network decided to send staff members into the region anyway, Jordan said. When the plot was uncovered by Kurdish authorities in March, they offered to let CNN interview the suspects on camera, but the network declined, fearing for the safety of its staff in Baghdad, he said. CNN had staff members in Baghdad until about three weeks ago, when they were expelled by Iraqi authorities as the coalition launched airstrikes on the Iraqi capital. After the expulsion, other international media outlets were warned that any of their staff members in Baghdad who helped CNN cover the war would be jailed and charged with spying for the CIA, Jordan said. However, for unknown reasons, the Iraqi government did not complain when CNN broadcast footage from Arab TV networks, he said. Jordan: Iraq tortured, killed those who helped CNN In an article published in Friday's editions of The New York Times, Jordan outlined incidents in which Iraqi officials had intimidated, tortured and killed people who had worked for CNN or helped the network with its coverage in Iraq. Those incidents have never before been revealed because they could have put people in jeopardy, Jordan said. In the mid-1990s, a Iraqi cameraman working for CNN was abducted, held for weeks and subjected to electroshock torture in a secret police headquarters when he refused to confirm that Jordan was the CIA station chief in Iraq, Jordan said. Also, a Kuwaiti woman, Asrar Qabandi, who had talked to CNN by telephone during Iraq's occupation of her country in 1990, was captured by Iraqi secret police. On the eve of the U.S.-led campaign, she was killed, her body torn limb from limb and the body parts left on the doorstep of her family's home, Jordan said. Jordan also said that in 1995, Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, had told him that he planned to assassinate his two brothers-in-law who had defected from Iraq to Jordan. In addition, Uday said, he planned to kill Jordan's King Hussein, who had given them asylum. Eason Jordan said he told King Hussein of the plot, but the king dismissed it as "a madman's rant." The Jordanian monarch was not harmed, but Uday's brothers-in-law were lured back to Iraq and killed several months later. http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/11/sprj.irq.cnn.plot/index.html
Here is the link to the story at the NY Times. <a HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html">The News We Kept to Ourselves</a> What puzzles me, is that a <i>group</i> of posters on this BBS was eager to post in the thread about the picture of the crowd in Baghdad, yet ignore this story completely. Why is the other story worthy of discussion and this one drops like a rock for lack of comment?
That's quite a window into the madness of the Iraqi regime. I thought King Hussein's reaction was compelling. It sounds like something he would say, based on countless interviews I saw of him over the years. He was one hell of a guy, imo, and I hope his son is able to keep himself safe. I noticed that Jordan is getting significant aid in the war-funding bill in Congress. I'm glad to see it. They have quietly helped us out during this conflict and continue to do so. That's a hell of a risk to take, all things considered.
Deckard, I have mentioned the 1995 defection of Kamel in past BBS discussions, so it caught my eye when Kamel was brought up in that article. It just strikes me as odd that somebody from CNN knew about the plot to kill Kamel & his brother and they both were killed upon their return to Iraq. CNN said they kept a lid on some stories about Iraq to protect their people, but I am unsure that they achieved a valid goal. Their <i>own</i> people might have been spared because CNN cracked, but probably many others (<i>strangers</i> to CNN) died because the violence continued.
So you think it unlikely that they back-channeled any of this to the CIA or the State Department? That's a pretty big story to sit on. Is Jordan supposed to have done this all on his own? I wonder who knew or found out about the warning to Hussein. It was pretty crazy that those two returned to Iraq. I always wondered what got them to do it. They had to have known something bad was going to happen to them. And the plot to kill the CNN people in Kurdish Iraq... it seems like the intelligence people you would think the US would have in the area would have heard about an incident like this. Strange. Maybe CNN just sat on it and none of it got out. Eight years is a long time to keep the Hussein story under wraps.
