The safety of journalists is paramount to CNN, as it is to news organizations worldwide.

Because it has become such a dangerous place, news organizations do rely on Iraqi staffers. These journalists get caught up in their own country's sectarian violence. Their presence has also created potential conflicts with the U.S. military, which has had a difficult and slow time accepting that Iraqis have been professional and objective journalists.

I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise,

Withholding information that would get innocent people killed was the right thing to do, not a journalistic sin.

It's a war zone. Terrible things happen.

CNN is proud of its people and they were doing the right thing in providing coverage of the departure of the freed U.S. flight crew.