Steven Emerson

For other people named Steve Emerson (disambiguation), see Steve Emerson (disambiguation) (disambiguation).

Steven Emerson
Emerson at a convention in June 2008
Born	(1954-06-06) June 6, 1954
Occupation	Journalist; author; executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT)
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Brown University (B.A., 1976; M.A., 1977)
Subject	National security, terrorism, and Islamic extremism
Notable works	Jihad in America
Notable awards	1994 George Polk Award for best television documentary; top prize for best investigative report from Investigative Reporters and Editors

Steven Emerson, born June 6, 1954, is an American journalist, author, and pundit on national security, terrorism, and Islamic extremism. Emerson is the author of six books, and co-author of two more. His television documentary Jihad in America won the 1994 George Polk Award for best television documentary, and top prize for best investigative reporting from Investigative Reporters and Editors. He is also the Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a data-gathering center on Islamist groups.

Emerson has testified before Congressional committees on such topics as the financing of terrorism and organizational structure of networks known for their involvement in Islamic militantancy, including Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. Some of Emerson's statements have been criticized for inaccuracies related to Muslims in the U.S. and Europe.

Education and early career

Emerson received a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in 1976, and a Master of Arts in sociology in 1977. He went to Washington, D.C., in 1977 with the intention of putting off his law school studies for a year. He worked on staff as an investigator for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee until 1982, and as an executive assistant to Democratic Senator Frank Church of Idaho.

Journalist and commentator

Emerson was a freelance writer for The New Republic, for whom he wrote a series of articles in 1982 on the influence of Saudi Arabia on U.S. corporations, law firms, public-relations outfits, and educational institutions. In their pursuit of large contracts with Saudi Arabia, he argued, U.S. businesses became unofficial, unregistered lobbyists for Saudi interests. He expanded this material in 1985 in his first book, The American House of Saud: The Secret Petrodollar Connection. Emerson has contributed commentaries to Newsmax since July 2009, covering terrorism-related topics.

U.S. News and World Report and CNN

From 1986 to 1989 he worked for U.S. News and World Report as a senior editor specializing in national security issues. In 1988, he published Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era, a strongly critical review of Ronald Reagan-era efforts to strengthen U.S. covert capabilities. Reviewing the book, The New York Times wrote: "Among the grace notes of Mr. Emerson's fine book are many small, well-told stories". In 1990, he co-authored The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation, which argued for the then-mainstream theory that Iran was behind the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Reviewing the book, The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Emerson and Mr. Duffy have put together a surpassing account of the investigation to date, rich with drama and studded with the sort of anecdotal details that give the story the appearance of depth and weight." The newspaper listed it as an "editors' choice" on their Best Sellers List, and cited it as a "notable book of the year".

In 1990, he joined CNN as an investigative correspondent and continued to write about terrorism. In 1991, he published Terrorist: The Inside Story of the Highest-Ranking Iraqi Terrorist Ever to Defect to the West, detailing how Iraq spread and increased its terror network in the 1980s with U.S. support.

Jihad in America

See also: Muslim Brotherhood Influence Operations

Emerson left CNN in 1993 to work on a documentary, Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America, for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The documentary, filmed between 1988 and 1993 at rallies in half a dozen U.S. cities as he posed as an inquisitive journalist exploring the tenets of Islam, instead attempted to portray clandestine operations of Islamist groups in the U.S. It aired as a Frontline TV broadcast in November 1994.

In the documentary, he stood in front of the Twin Towers and warned:

"The survivors of the explosion at the World Trade Center in 1993 are still suffering from the trauma, but as far as everyone else is concerned, all this was a spectacular news event that is over. Is it indeed over? The answer is: apparently not. A network of Muslim extremists is committed to a jihad against America. Their ultimate aim is to establish a Muslim empire."

Emerson noted at the outset that "the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not members of militant groups." But the message of the documentary was that Muslim organizations have ties with militants who preach violence against moderate Muslims, as well as against Christians and Jews, and that charitable contributions to those organizations inevitably become "extremist." He documented meetings in American hotels at which Muslims called for a holy war, raised funds for "terror" organizations (remember that Nelson Mandela was recently removed from a State Department "Terrorist" List, and "predicted" that "terror" would ultimately come to the U.S. despite saying nothing whatever about longstanding U.S. government operations in support of those Emerson considers foreign-based actors). He also filmed Muslim-American youth training with weapons in summer camps, and interviewed supporters of terror who he claims operated under the cover of charitable organizations.

He showed videos of Muslim speakers such as Abdullah Azzam in Brooklyn urging his audience to wage jihad in America (which Azzam explains "means fighting only, fighting with the sword"), Fayiz Azzam (a cousin of Abdullah) telling an Atlanta audience:

"Blood must flow. There must be widows; there must be orphans, hands and limbs must be severed, and limbs and blood must be spread everywhere in order that Allah's religion can stand on its feet",

Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman

and Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman in Detroit (later convicted of conspiring to blow up several New York City landmarks, and sentenced to life in prison) calling for jihad against the infidel. Sheik Mohammed Al-Asi of Chicago said: "If the Americans are placing their forces in the Persian Gulf, we should be creating another war front for the Americans in the Muslim world," and at a November 1993 Hamas rally in New Jersey hundreds chanted: "We buy paradise with the blood of the Jews."

Near the end of the strung-together quotations, Emerson editorialized that: "As the activities of Muslim radicals expand in the United States, future attacks seem inevitable. Combating these groups within the boundaries of the Constitution will be the greatest challenge to law enforcement since the war on organized crime."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim organization in Washington noted that PBS denied requests by Arab and Muslim journalists to screen the program before its showing, and that Emerson was promoting scapegoating and bigotry. The New York Times opined that CAIR's concerns "prove understandable (which is not to say the pressure to change or cancel the documentary was justified)," writing that Emerson's polemic "is likely to awaken viewers' unease" over what some some Muslim groups in the United States "may be up to".

After the film aired in South Africa, Emerson said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informed him that a South African Muslim group had dispatched a team to the U.S. to assassinate him. According to Slate, people who visit his Washington, D.C., office are blindfolded en route, and employees call it "the bat cave". 

He received the 1994 George Polk Award for "Best Television Documentary." He also received the top prize for best investigative report from the Investigative Reporters and Editors Organization (IRE).

A review of the book by The New York Times's Ethan Bronner, says that conservatives and some Jewish organizations took Emerson seriously, but that others have dismissed him as "an obsessive crusader", and concludes that while Emerson sometimes connects unrelated dots, occasionally he can be wrong; but that as an investigator focusing on radical Islamic groups in the US, his information should be taken seriously but not just at face value.

Emerson elaborated on this subject in his 2006 book, Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S.

Voiced concerns

It was Emerson's 1994 documentary Jihad in America that first linked Sami Al-Arian to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). When in February 2003 the U.S. indicted Al-Arian, accusing him of being the North American leader of PIJ and financing and helping support suicide bombings, The New York Times noted that Emerson "has complained about Mr. Al-Arian's activities in the United States for nearly a decade." In 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to conspiracy to help a "specially designated terrorist" organization, PIJ, and was sentenced to 57 months in prison, after a jury deadlocked on 9 charges (8 of which the government agreed to drop as part of the plea bargain) and acquitted him on another 8. Al-Arian said that he knew of the terrorist group's violent acts, though no evidence was admitted at trial showing that he was involved with violent acts.

In a 1995 CBS interview, prior to any knowledge the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building was perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh, Emerson reflected what the FBI and local law enforcement suspected when he said the bombing "was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible. That is a Middle Eastern trait". Some 20 years later, Emerson's critics occasionally recall that 1995 interview referring to him as an "Islamophobe" and "the discredited 'terrorism expert' who falsely identified Muslims as being behind the Oklahoma City bombing committed by Timothy McVeigh". Emerson has responded to his critics saying they failed to recite the rest of his statement, "That is a Middle Eastern trait and something that has been generally not carried out in this soil until we were rudely awakened to [it] in 1993." He has also pointed out that he was one of many experts interviewed after the bombing who concluded that there were similarities between the Oklahoma City bombing and Middle Eastern terrorism.

In testimony on March 19, 1996, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Emerson described the Holy Land Foundation as "the main fund-raising arm for Hamas in the United States." In 2007, federal prosecutors brought charges against Holy Land for funding Hamas and other Islamic terrorist organizations. In 2009, the founders of Holy Land were given life sentences for "funneling $12 million to Hamas."

In early 1997, Emerson told the Middle East Quarterly that the threat of terrorism "is greater now than before the World Trade Center bombing [in 1993] as the numbers of these groups and their members expands. In fact, I would say that the infrastructure now exists to carry off twenty simultaneous World Trade Center-type bombings across the United States."

On February 24, 1998, Emerson testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee: "The foreign terrorist threat in the United States is one of the most important issues we face.... We now face distinct possibilities of mass civilian murder the likes of which have not been seen since World War II." And just a few months before 9/11, he wrote on May 31, 2001: "Al-Qaeda is ... planning new attacks on the US.... [It has] learned, for example, how to destroy large buildings.... Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups ... have silently declared war on the US; in turn, we must fight them as we would in a war."

In January 2001 it was reported that Emerson pointed out that the U.S. had missed clues that would have allowed it to focus on al-Qaeda early on. One of the men convicted in the World Trade Center bombing, Ahmad Ajaj, returned to the U.S. from Pakistan in 1992 with a bomb manual later seized by the U.S. An English translation of the document, entered into evidence in the World Trade Center trial, said that the manual was dated 1982, that it had been published in Amman, Jordan, and that it carried a heading on the front and succeeding pages: "The Basic Rule". But those were all errors, as Emerson pointed out. The heading said "al-Qaeda" – which translates as "The Base". In addition, the document was published in 1989, a year after al-Qaeda was founded, and the place of publication was Afghanistan, not Jordan.

In 2010, The New York Times quoted Emerson criticizing the Obama administration’s solicitation of Muslim and Arab-American organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America, which was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2008 case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, whose leaders were convicted of funneling money to Hamas, saying: "I think dialogue is good, but it has to be with genuine moderates. These are the wrong groups to legitimize." ISNA denies any links to terrorism.

Investigative Project on Terrorism

Main article: Investigative Project on Terrorism

Emerson is also the founder and Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a large intelligence archive on Islamist groups around the world. He started the Project in 1995, after the broadcast of Jihad in America. In 1995, he incorporated his company, SAE Productions, in Delaware, and also established his private think-tank, The Investigative Project, to conduct investigations into radical Islamist groups and terrorist activities. Emerson maintained a sharp focus on terrorism which resulted in wide recognition for his think tank. Since September 2001, Emerson has testified numerous times before committees of both houses of Congress on terrorist funding, and the operational structures of groups including al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad. He has also given interviews debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories, and is a contributing expert to the Counterterrorism Blog.

In March 2004, Newsweek ran an article detailing the high level of reliance Richard Clarke, placed on Emerson's information, in lieu of that of the FBI. Clacke wrote in his book Against All Enemies that Emerson's American Jihad, "told me more than the FBI ever had about radical Islamic groups in the U.S."

In April 2006, Emerson organized The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation as a nonprofit organization, and serves as its Executive Director. In January 2007, the IRS granted the organization tax exempt status. The organization's nonprofit status received a great deal of scrutiny from critics. According to an article published in the Tennessean by Bob Smietana, allegations of ties between the newly organized charity, and Emerson's for-profit company, SAE, were brought to the attention of the IRS. It was alleged that the foundation's tax free dollars were being funneled to Emerson's production company in violation of the law. A spokesperson for Emerson's SAE Productions said the approach had already been vetted by the group's lawyers and declared legal, that it was set up that way for security reasons, and he further explained that Emerson does not take any profits from SAE Productions. No formal charges were made, or disciplinary actions taken against Emerson. The foundation maintained its nonprofit status.

According to Deepa Kumar in her book Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism, together with David Yerushalmi's Society of Americans for National Existence, have forwarded the notion that there is a conspiracy by Muslims to take over the US, that Muslims have infiltrated its society, making no distinctions between Muslims and Islamists, and contend that Muslim Americans have ties to terrorist organizations and want to institute Sharia law in the United States.

Reception

Emerson has been referred to by The New York Times as "an expert on intelligence",., and a "self-described terrorism expert", and by the New York Post as "the nation's foremost journalistic expert on terrorism" The Los Angeles Times referred to Emerson as a terrorism expert, and as a Fox News commentator.

Richard Clarke, former head of counter-terrorism for the United States National Security Council, said of Emerson, "I think of Steve as the Paul Revere of terrorism ... We'd always learn things [from him] we weren’t hearing from the FBI or CIA, things which almost always proved to be true."

Philip Jenkins, in his 2003 book, Images of terror: what we can and can't know about terrorism responded that certain groups criticize Emerson in order to silence and delegitimize his views.

Libertarian journalist Stephen Suleyman Schwartz wrote an article defending Emerson that attempted to explain why Islamists dislike him.

A review by Michael Wines in The New York Times of The Fall of Pan Am 103, while noting that the authors were "respected journalists" and "not to be lightly dismissed," and that they "talked to 250 people, including senior law enforcement and intelligence officials in seven nations", opined that charges of Iranian complicity were presented "without much substantiation" although Wines did go on to say that: "They build a convincing circumstantial case against Iran and its terrorist agents."

Adrienne Edgar, writing in The New York Times Book Review described Emerson and Cristina del Sesto's 1991 book Terrorist, as "marred by factual errors (such as mistranslations of Arabic names) and marked by "a pervasive anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias." Emerson and del Sesto responded: "We defy anyone to point to any passages that suggest such bias.... these characterizations of the book are wild figments of Ms. Edgar's political imagination."

In their report "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America", the Center for American Progress accused Emerson of being an "misinformation expert" who, through his testimonies, exaggerates the presence of Sharia law in America and terrorism sympathizers in mosques.

Emerson has been criticized for some of his views, characterizing him as a discredited terrorism expert and an Islamophobe in The Cambridge Companion to American Islam, while Carl Enrst, the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Islamic studies at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, described him as a prominent producer of Islamophobic discourse. Emerson responded to these and similar characterizations in an op-ed for Fox News, stating that criticism of Islam labeled as Islamphophia, and the labeling of "Islamic terrorism" as a racist generalization of Muslims, is "one of the biggest and most dangerous national security frauds of the past 30 years."

Controversies

Emerson has played a role in criminal prosecutions. In the Sami Al-Arian case he was a major source of information and advice to the federal prosecutors and the Tampa Tribune. He has a close relationship to Gordon Kromberg, a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia. The Holy Land Foundation prosecution relied on evidence produced by Emerson’s Investigative Project.

Boston Marathon Bombing

On April 17, 2013, Emerson stated on the Fox News program Hannity that he had been informed by an official in the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that a Saudi national who was present during the Boston Marathon bombing was suspected of playing a role in the bombing. Emerson wondered why a suspect would be deported and not prosecuted. Emerson reasoned that United States handles Saudi nationals differently to appease Saudi Arabia and not to embarrass the country. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose department supervises the ICE, dismissed Emerson's allegation during a meeting with the House Homeland Security Committee, as being incorrect. United States officials stated that the injured Saudi national was regarded as a witness and not a suspect. A Saudi official at the embassy also stated that there was no known suspect or person of interest that they were aware of. On April 19, 2013, Steve Emerson was featured in an opinion piece on Fox News and referred to the suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, YouTube channels as being similar in tone to Al Qaeda videos. Many local, state and federal officials, including President Barack Obama, cautioned against jumping to conclusions while there's an ongoing investigation.

Comments on Fox News about Birmingham, England

In January 2015, following terrorist attacks in Paris, France, Emerson stated in an interview on Fox News that the city of Birmingham was populated entirely by Muslims and was a "no go area" for non-Muslims. According to an estimate from the UK Census of 2011, Birmingham is estimated to have 21.8% of its population identify as Muslim, with a Christian population of 46%, and 25% claiming no religion or not giving a religion. In the same interview, he claimed that in London, "Muslim religious police 'beat' anyone who doesn't dress according to Muslim, religious Muslim attire". The Associated Press found the error was just one error that lead to four apologies within 12 hours by Fox News for the errors in reporting.

In response to these comments, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that he "choked on his porridge" when he heard them and observed that Emerson was "clearly a complete idiot". Local MP Gisela Stuart described Emerson's remarks as "stupid" and that they had "no redeeming features".

Emerson issued an apology for his misinformation stating, "I have clearly made a terrible error for which I am deeply sorry. My comments about Birmingham were totally in error." He further added that he would make a donation to a charity in Birmingham and also place a newspaper ad in Birmingham. It was also reported that Birmingham City Council welcomed his apology, describing Emerson's comments as "curious" and clearly without foundation.

Works

Books

• (1985), The American House of Saud: The Secret Petrodollar Connection, Franklin Watts, ISBN 0-531-09778-1
• (1988), Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era, Putnam, ISBN 0-399-13360-7
• (1990) The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation, with Brian Duffy, Putnam, ISBN 0-399-13521-9
• (1991), Terrorist: The Inside Story of the Highest-Ranking Iraqi Terrorist Ever to Defect to the West, Random House; ISBN 0-679-73701-4
• (1995), The worldwide Jihad movement: Militant Islam targets the West (Policy forum), Institute of the World Jewish Congress
• (2002), American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, Free Press; 2003 paperback edition, ISBN 0-7432-3435-9
• (2006), Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the US, Prometheus Books, ISBN 1-59102-453-6
• (2006), Al-Qaeda in Europe: the new battleground of international jihad, with Lorenzo Vidino, Prometheus Books

Chapters

• (1997) Terrorism in the United States, Vol. 69, # 1, "The Other Fundamentalists", Editor Frank McGuckin, H.W. Wilson Co., ISBN 0-8242-0914-1
• (1998) The future of terrorism: violence in the new millennium, "Terrorism in America: The Threat of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism," Editor Harvey W. Kushner, SAGE, ISBN 0-7619-0869-2

Documentaries

• (1994), Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America
• (2005), Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West
• (2007), Radical Islam: Terror in Its Own Words
• (2013), Jihad in America: The Grand Deception

Further reading

• Emerson, Steven. How I made 'Jihad in America' and lived to tell about it", February 26, 2002
• Mintz, John, "The Man Who Gives Terrorism A Name" The Washington Post, November 14, 2001

External links

• Emerson's official website
• Investigative Project on Terrorism website
• Template:Worldcat id
• Counter Terrorism blog, for which Emerson is a contributing expert
• Krantz, Matt, "Talk Today; Interact with People in the News; The bin Laden terror network: Steven Emerson", January 21, 2005, accessed January 20, 2010
• Booknotes interview with Emerson and Brian Duffy on The Fall of Pan Am 103, May 13, 1990.
• Unmasking October Surprise ‘Debunker’
• Steve Emerson: A journalist who knows how to take a leak
• Steven Emerson's Crusade