Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.

During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by American forces in Iraq had been targeted.

He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place and were killed by a bomb, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.

"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," Jordan said in a memo to fellow staff members at CNN.

But the damage had been done, compounded by the fact that no transcript of his actual remarks has turned up. There was an online petition calling on CNN to find a transcript and fire Jordan if he said the military had intentionally killed journalists.

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Editor's note: