Steven Emerson

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Steven Emerson is an American investigative journalist specializing in national security, terrorism, and Islamic extremism. He is the executive director of The Investigative Project, a data-gathering center on Islamist groups, and the author of six books on terrorism and national security, including American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us (2002). ^[1]

Emerson predicted, before September 11, 2001, that Islamists would launch a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and warned the U.S. Senate in 1998 of the danger posed by Osama bin Laden.^[2]

Contents 1 Education and early career 2 Journalist and commentator 2.1 U.S. News and World Report and CNN 2.2 Jihad in America 2.3 The Investigative Project 3 Death threat 4 Criticism 5 Works 5.1 Books 5.2 Documentaries 6 See also 7 Notes 8 Further reading

[edit] Education and early career

Emerson received a Bachelors of Arts degree from Brown University in 1976, followed by a Master of Arts in sociology in 1977. After university, Emerson worked on staff as an investigator for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee until 1982, and as an executive assistant to Senator Frank Church. ^[3]

[edit] Journalist and commentator

Emerson then worked as a freelance writer, published mainly in The New Republic, including a series of articles exploring the influence of Saudi Arabia in American corporations, law firms, public-relations outfits and educational institutions. In their pursuit of large contracts with Saudi Arabia, he argued, American businesses had become unofficial, and unregistered, lobbyists for Saudi interests. This material received further elaboration in his first book, The American House of Saud: The Secret Petrodollar Connection, which was published in 1985.

[edit] U.S. News and World Report and CNN

From 1986 to 1989 he was employed by U.S. News and World Report as a senior editor specializing in national security issues. ^[3] In 1988, he published Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era, a strongly critical review of recent efforts to strengthen American covert capabilities. In 1990, he co-authored The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation, which argued for the alternate theory that Iran was behind the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

In 1990, he joined CNN as an investigative correspondent for the network's Special Assignment, 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, which detailed his account of how Iraq had spread and increased its terror network in the 1980s with United States support.

[edit] Jihad in America

He left CNN in 1993 to work on his documentary Jihad in America for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which exposed the clandestine operations of Islamist groups in the U.S., and for which he received the George Polk Award for best television documentary, ^[4]and the top prize for best investigative report from the Investigative Reporters and Editors Organization (IRE). ^[5] Emerson elaborated this subject in his next book, Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S.^[6]

[edit] The Investigative Project

Emerson is also the founder and executive director of The Investigative Project, one of the world's largest intelligence archives on Islamist groups. He started the Project in 1995, after the broadcast of Jihad in America. Since September 2001, Emerson has testified before Congress dozens of times on terrorist funding and on the operational structures of al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, and has given interviews debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories. He is a contributing "expert" to the Counterrorism Blog. ^[7]

Richard Clarke, the former head of counter-terrorism for the U.S. 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." ^[8]

[edit] Death threat

After his film Jihad in America aired in South Africa, Emerson writes that the FBI informed him that a South African Muslim group had dispatched a team to the U.S. to assassinate him. Since that time, Emerson says, he uses a collapsible mirror to check there are no bombs underneath his car, stays away from windows, varies his routine, does occasional U-turns when driving to make sure no one is following him, wears inconspicuous clothing, and changes his routes and the times he leaves his home. He requires security when speaking at universities, and a police guard when addressing the Senate. According to Slate, people who visit his Washington, D.C. office are blindfolded en route, and employees call it "the bat cave." [1] He left the condominium he had just purchased when Jihad in America was first aired, and now lives undercover. [2]

[edit] Criticism

Emerson has been accused of exaggerating the threats posed by Islamists and of creating fictitious or unverifiable sources. Examples of allegations that have been ridiculed by the mainstream media include an alleged plot by Pakistan to launch a nuclear first strike against India and the accusation that Yugoslavians were behind the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.[3] In its criticism of his coverage of the Pan Am 103 bombing, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting also accused Emerson of plagiarism:

Emerson's book, The Fall of Pan Am 103, was chastised by the Columbia Journalism Review, which noted in July 1990 that passages "bear a striking resemblance, in both substance and style" to reports in the Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y. Reporters from the Syracuse newspaper told this writer that they cornered Emerson at an Investigative Reporters and Editors conference and forced an apology.[4]

The New York Times also criticized Emerson's accusation that Iran was behind the bombing.

But instead of weaving these revelations into the day-to-day story of the investigation, they drop them almost casually at the end, without much substantiation.[5]

Emerson also accused Muslims of being behind the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The false accusations led to "a backlash against the American Muslim community during the first few days after the explosion." [6]

[edit] Works

[edit] 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) with Duffy B., The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation, 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; Villard paperback edition, 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 (October 2, 2006), ISBN 1-591-02453-6

[edit] Documentaries

• Terrorists among us - Jihad in America
• Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West
• Radical Islam: Terror in Its Own Words

[edit] See also

• Daniel Pipes
• Robert Spencer

[edit] Notes

[edit] Further reading

• [7], Christian Science Monitor Bio Info
• [8] Speaking to Jewish Group
• "Steven Emerson's Disturbing Track Record" by Ahmed Rehab on "Media Monitors Network."
• Steven Emerson's website
• Counter Terrorism Blog, where Emerson is a contributing expert.
• Nicholas, Jake. "On our soil: Interview with Steven Emerson", Planet Jackson Hole, July 19, 2006.
• Emerson's January 25, 2000 testimony to the House of Representatives' Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims
• Emerson, Steven. How I made 'Jihad in America' and lived to tell about it", February 26, 2002
• Get Ready for Twenty World Trade Center Bombings Middle East Forum interview with Steven Emerson, conducted on April 7, 1997; published June 1997
• "In Defense of Steven Emerson and Daniel Pipes", a letter from Shaykh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Root and Branch Information Service, September 19, 1999
• Emerson, Steven. "Exposing jihad within our borders", March 21, 2002.
• Sugg, John F. Steven Emerson's Crusade, Extra!, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, January-February 1999.
• WSJ Rejects Muslim Reply to Steven Emerson
• Boehlert, Eric. The prime-time smearing of Sami Al-Arian, Salon, January 19, 2002.
• "Withdraws Defamation Suit, Counterpunch, May 19, 2003, retrieved January 4, 2004
• "Extra's Report on Steven Emerson: Setting the Record Straight" -FAIR, February 2, 1999.
• Mintz, John. The Washington Post, November 14, 2001.
• Friedman, Robert. The Nation, May 15, 1995.