[sacw] Journalist accused of promoting false claims

[Harsh Kapoor]

FYI
(South Asians Against Nukes)
------------------------------------------
PRESS RELEASES

EDITOR SAYS "JIHAD"
JOURNALIST PROMOTED NUCLEAR SCIENTIST HOAX

Steven Emerson

False claims may have pushed Asian subcontinent to the brink of war

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 1/13/99) - A Florida
newspaper editor is alleging that controversial journalist Steven
Emerson* helped promote a man who claimed to be defecting from
Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Last summer, the man told
journalists he was a Pakistani nuclear scientist and that he
fled to the United States due to fear that Pakistan would launch
a nuclear attack against India, a longtime political and military
rival. (At the time, regional tensions and the threat of war
were at a peak because both nations had recently conducted tests
of nuclear weapons.) This allegation, and the man's credentials,
were later revealed to be a hoax.

In an article titled "Steven Emerson's Crusade" appearing
in the most recent issue of EXTRA!, the publication of Fairness
& Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), editor John Sugg (JohnSugg@a...)
of The Weekly Planet newspaper wrote:

"Emerson, in an odd role for a journalist, worked behind
the scenes to interest reporters in (the man's claims). A top
network news producer says his congressional sources and news
contacts were tipped to the story by Emerson...The role Emerson
played may at first seem perplexing. He presents himself as a
journalist, yet he handed off what appeared to be a major story
to rivals. A closer look at Emerson's career suggests his priority
is not so much news as it is an unrelenting attack against Arabs
and Muslims. From this perspective, his gambit with Khan (the
alleged scientist) seems easier to understand: Pakistan is a
Muslim nation, while India's nuclear program has long been linked
to Israel..."

Sugg's article also contains details about what he calls a "lengthy
list of mistakes and distortions that mar his (Emerson's) credentials."
The list includes Emerson's unfounded accusation that Muslims
were behind the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City and claims that a bomb brought down TWA Flight
800.

The EXTRA! article includes allegations that Emerson provided
Associated Press (AP) reporters with documents purported to be
from the FBI. Sugg quotes AP's Richard Cole as saying the dossier
"was really his (Emerson's)" and that Emerson "had
edited out all phrases, taken out anything that made it look
like his."

According to Sugg, Emerson also has a history of "savaging
critics" such as The Miami Herald, The Nation, Voice of
America, and a Council on Foreign Relations newsletter, as well
as numerous individual journalists.

- END -

*Emerson is best known for his 1994 PBS production "Jihad
in America." Muslims claim he has a long history of defamatory
and inaccurate attacks on the Islamic community in this country.

STEVEN EMERSON'S CRUSADE - WHY IS A
JOURNALIST PUSHING QUESTIONABLE STORIES FROM BEHIND THE SCENES?

By John F. Sugg, EXTRA!, A Publication of Fairness & Accuracy
in Reporting (FAIR), <http://www.fair.org/>http://www.fair.org/

Reprinted with permission of the author.

Subscribe to EXTRA! at
<http://www.fair.org/extra/subscribe.html>http://www.fair.org/extra/subscribe.ht
ml.

Did self-styled anti-terrorism expert Steven Emerson help push
the world toward nuclear war?

On Sunday, June 28, a sensational story appeared in the British
newspaper The Observer: "Pakistan was planning nuclear first
strike on India." The stunning revelation that South Asia
was on the brink of thermonuclear war was credited to an unnamed
"senior Pakistani weapons scientist who has defected."
The next day, papers on the Indian subcontinent were full of
the news. Shock spread and distrust mounted. "The scenario
is frightening," stated the Times of India (6/29/98).

On Wednesday, July 1, a USA Today report by Barbara Slavin named
the defector, Iftikhar Chaudry Khan. The press scrambled to contact
New York lawyer Michael Wildes, who represents Khan in his attempt
to get political asylum.

Emerson, in an odd role for a journalist, worked behind the scenes
to interest reporters in Wildes' client. A top network news producer
says his congressional sources and news contacts were tipped
to the story by Emerson. Slavin says she was mainly convinced
of the story's legitimacy because of one of the Observer's three
writers was associated with the prestigious military analysis
group Jane's, but that Emerson's involvement added credibility.
Attorney Wildes himself says, "Emerson was helpful in corroborating
information and making scientific clarifications."

By July 7, U.S. nuclear physicists had interviewed Khan and pronounced
him a fraud. ``He does not know anything about physics,'' Frank
von Hippel, a nuclear expert at Princeton University, told USA
Today (7/7/98). ``He didn't know the basics of uranium enrichment.
He's a very low-level something if he's anything.''

EMERSON'S PRIORITIES

Emerson has escaped notice in the affair--but his efforts had
helped craft a hard-to-erase public perception that Pakistan
was the bad guy among Asia's nuclear novices.

The role Emerson played may at first seem perplexing. He presents
himself as a journalist, yet he handed off what appeared to be
a major story to rivals. A closer look at Emerson's career suggests
his priority is not so much news as it is an unrelenting attack
against Arabs and Muslims. From this perspective, his gambit
with Khan seems easier to understand: Pakistan is a Muslim nation,
while India's nuclear program has long been linked to Israel.
As the Indian Express noted (6/29/98), Pakistani politicians
were "convinced that they were about to be attacked by India,
possibly with Israeli assistance."

Emerson's willingness to push an extremely thin story--with potentially
explosive consequences--is also consistent with the lengthy list
of mistakes and distortions that mar his credentials as an expert
on terrorism.

Those blemishes had, for a time, seemed to drive Emerson from
major news outlets. He has had to resort to new tactics to maintain
his anti-Muslim crusade--an "anti-terrorism" journal
that he uses as a soapbox, associates whose reputations aren't
as damaged as his, and, as in the Khan episode, staying behind
the curtains.

Emerson was back in the news last August--when terrorist bombs
shattered U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. While most Americans
watched the grisly nightly news in open-mouthed dismay, self-styled
anti-terrorism experts seemed to be jostling with one another
to grab a few minutes on Rivera Live, the Today show and CNN.
For a brief few days, they even displaced the Monicagate pundits.

In the vanguard of the chattering heads was Emerson, whose past
errors were quickly forgotten in the wake of African and Middle
Eastern carnage.

"MIDDLE EASTERN TRAIT"

Emerson gained prominence in the early '90s. He published books,
wrote articles, produced a documentary, won awards and was frequently
quoted. The media, Capitol Hill and scholars paid attention.
"I respect his research. He gets to people who were at the
events," says Jeffrey T. Richelson, author of A Century
of Spies.

As Emerson's fame mounted, so did criticism. 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.

A New York Times review (5/19/91) of his 1991 book Terrorist
chided that it was "marred by factual errors...and by a
pervasive anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias." His 1994
PBS video, Jihad in America (11/94), was faulted for bigotry
and misrepresentations--veteran reporter Robert Friedman (The
Nation, 5/15/95) accused Emerson of "creating mass hysteria
against American Arabs."

Emerson was wrong when he initially pointed to Yugoslavians as
suspects in the World Trade Center bombing (CNN, 3/2/93). He
was wrong when he said on CNBC (8/23/96) that "it was a
bomb that brought down TWA Flight 800."

Emerson's most notorious gaffe was his claim that the 1995 Oklahoma
City bombing showed "a Middle Eastern trait" because
it "was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties
as possible." (CBS News, 4/19/95) Afterward, news organizations
appeared less interested in Emerson's pronouncements. A CBS contract
expired and wasn't renewed. Emerson had been a regular source
and occasional writer for the Washington Post; his name doesn't
turn up once in Post archives after Jan. 1, 1996. USA Today mentioned
Emerson a dozen times before September 1996, none after.

"He's poison," says investigative author Seymour Hersh,
when asked about how Emerson is perceived by fellow journalists.

DUBIOUS DOCUMENT

Yet Emerson seems irrepressible. In 1997, for example, an Associated
Press editor became convinced that Emerson was the "mother
lode of terrorism information," according to a reporter
who worked on a series that looked at American Muslim groups.

As a consultant on the series, Emerson presented AP reporters
with what were "supposed to be FBI documents" describing
mainstream American Muslim groups with alleged terrorist sympathies,
according to the project's lead writer, Richard Cole. One of
the reporters uncovered an earlier, almost identical document
authored by Emerson. The purported FBI dossier "was really
his," Cole says. "He had edited out all phrases, taken
out anything that made it look like his."

Another AP reporter, Fred Bayles, recalls that Emerson "could
never back up what he said. We couldn't believe that document
was from the FBI files."

Emerson's contribution was largely stripped from the series,
and he retaliated with a "multi-page rant," according
to Cole. AP Executive Editor Bill Ahearn does not dispute that
the incident happened, but refuses to comment or to release documents
because the episode was deemed an "internal matter."
A ranking AP editor in Washington says: "We would be very,
very, very, very leery of using Steve Emerson."

Also during Emerson's lean years, he scored a November 1996 hit
in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (11/3/96)--owned by right-wing
Clinton-basher Richard Mellon Scaife, who also partially funded
Jihad in America. Considering Scaife's patronage, it is not surprising
that Emerson declared that Muslim terrorist sympathizers were
hanging out at the White House. Emerson had a similar commentary
piece printed three months earlier in the Wall Street Journal
(8/5/96), one of the writer's few consistent major outlets.

TAMPA'S "TERRORISTS"

His most fruitful media foray during this period was at a Tampa,
Florida, newspaper. Emerson's Jihad in America video had, in
part, targeted Islamic scholars at the University of South Florida
in Tampa. Following Emerson's leads, Michael Fechter, a reporter
for The Tampa Tribune launched a series of articles in 1995 titled
"Ties to Terrorists." The series and subsequent articles
relied on Emerson as a primary source.

The Tribune's managing editor, Bruce Witwer, wrote in a July
15, 1997, letter to an attorney: "Emerson is an acknowledged
expert in the field, while he may be controversial. Emerson has
the information. It is legitimate information." But the
information that Emerson is "controversial"--much less
Emerson's record of mistakes and the allegations of bias that
swirl around him--has never been disclosed by the Tribune to
its readers.

The Tribune's articles lacked balance and fairness, according
to other newspapers that have covered the events, including the
St. Petersburg Times and The Miami Herald. The Herald (3/22/98)
ran a lengthy analysis of the Tribune's reporting and concluded
the Tampa newspaper had ignored "perfectly innocent"
interpretations of activity, giving vent only to characterizations
that suggested "extremely dark forces were on the prowl."

Among the Tribune's and Emerson's charges are that Muslims, while
at the University of South Florida, were active Islamic Jihad
commanders. Emerson told Congress: "One of the world's most
lethal terrorist factions was based out of Tampa." If that's
so, federal agents must have missed something. Although the FBI
and INS have been searching for clues for more than three years,
no charges have been filed.

Like Emerson, the Tribune uses tenuous chains of association
to bolster its claims that individuals are linked to terrorist
groups. For example, in one article, the Tribune claimed that
because an Islamic Jihad leader had given a Reuters reporter,
Paul Eedle, several articles, including one interview published
in a Tampa magazine, and because material seized by federal agents
in Tampa included a 1993 Jihad calendar, this proved an organizational
linkage. The Tribune (7/28/98), ignoring the declared purpose
of the South Florida scholars to collect material about and from
all Middle East points of view, stated: "Eedle's experience
appears to tighten the relationship between the Jihad and the
Tampa group."

Eedle, when interviewed for this article, said that while it
was clear people in Tampa were sympathetic to the Palestinian
cause, "being given the magazine didn't prove that there
was any organizational link between Islamic Jihad and the publishers
of the magazine in Tampa." The Tribune, when presented with
Eedle's refusal to endorse the newspaper's conclusion, did not
comment.

Although no criminal charges have been filed in the Tampa case,
Emerson flatly states there is insidious wrongdoing. In February
1996, Emerson claimed that Tampa Muslim academics were directly
involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (St. Petersburg
Times, 2/10/96). "I am constrained at this point from revealing
some of those details," Emerson said. "But they include
money transfers, they include actual reservations and planning
for the conspirators in the bombing, and they include visits
back and forth between Tampa and New York and New Jersey, between
officials here of the groups [operating in Tampa] and officials
there."

Yet no federal record of such allegations could be found. A Freedom
of Information request to the Justice Department seeking any
information tying Tampa residents to the World Trade Center bombing
produced this reply from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General:
"Please be advised that no responsive records were located."

Actions have been taken against a couple of Emerson's targets.
Emerson seemed to gloat (Miami Herald, 3/22/98) that one Tampa
academic, Mazen Al-Najjar, has been jailed during a deportation
appeal since May 1997 based on secret evidence that he is a national
security threat. And he appeared gleeful that another University
of South Florida professor, Sami Al-Arian, was removed from the
classroom and is now unable to "propagate his message to
young students" (Miami Herald, 3/22/98). Typical of Emerson's
fact-checking, the university says no one has ever alleged that
Al-Arian, who is again teaching, brought politics into the
classroom.

"ARABAPHOBIA"

This summer's U.S. embassy bombings produced others who believed
in Emerson's legitimacy. Geraldo welcomed Emerson, as did NPR,
Good Morning America and MSNBC's Internight. Emerson popped an
opinion piece into the Wall Street Journal (8/8/98), that attacked
Clinton for "legitimizing self-declared 'civil rights' and
'mainstream' Islamic organizations that in fact operate as propaganda
and political arms of Islamic fundamentalist movements."

Although he piously prefaces diatribes by saying there are good
Muslims and bad Muslims, it's a hollow defense. He claimed, in
a March 1995 article in Jewish Monthly, that Islam "sanctions
genocide, planned genocide, as part of its religious doctrine."

Occasionally, Emerson outdoes himself with hyperbole. In an inflammatory
letter to the Voice of America (12/2/94), he fumed that radical
Muslims in the United States are plotting the "mass murder
of all Jews, Christians and moderate Muslims." Buddhists,
Wiccans and Scientologists are apparently exempt in the apocalypse
Emerson prophesies. Last year he warned that "the U.S. has
become occupied fundamentalist territory" (Jerusalem Post,
8/8/97).

While Emerson makes incredible claims
about Muslim conspiracies that purportedly intend to commit terrorism
inside U.S. borders, he ignores the fact that the majority of
such American atrocities, such as the anti-abortion bombings
and murders, are committed by apple-pie militant Christian fundamentalists.

His denunciations are often backed up only by allusions to unnamed
law enforcement sources. "Emerson makes unsubstantiated
allegations of widespread conspiracies in Arab-American communities
and brushes aside his lack of documented evidence by implying
it only proves how clever and sinister the Arab/Muslim menace
really is," investigative reporter Chip Berlet has written
(Covert Action Quarterly, Summer/95). "This is a prejudiced
and Arabaphobic twist on the old anti-Semitic canard of the crafty
and manipulative Jew."

And, his remedy is a draconian swipe at civil liberties by giving
law enforcement agencies broad authority to target Muslim advocacy
groups. Citing the "growing danger of allowing militant
groups to masquerade uncritically under the banner of self-anointed
'civil rights' and 'human rights' status," Emerson concludes,
"These groups are no more deserving of civil rights status
than the Ku Klux Klan's patently transparent efforts to masquerade
under civil rights monikers advocating 'human rights' for whites"
(Emerson testimony to U.S. Senate subcommittee 2/24/98).

Emerson buffs, such as Sen. Jon Kyl (R.-Arizona) provide the
journalist with a podium from which to make claims that are then
recycled as part of the public record. A Kyl subcommittee welcomed
Emerson as a witness in February, allowing him to present a 46-page
harangue against mainstream American Muslim organizations.

SAVAGING CRITICS

When criticized by journalists, Emerson retaliates with invective-laden
letters, often from lawyers. He has launched salvos at The Miami
Herald, The Nation, Voice of America, FAIR (which publishes Extra!),
and a Council on Foreign Relations newsletter, as well as at
numerous individual journalists.

Kojo Nnamdi, a talk show host on Howard University's WHUT, remembers
that when he invited some Muslims on a program, "Emerson
started making threats. He wanted to link academics to terrorists.
He succeeded in delaying the program, I'm sorry to say."

After Emerson in 1996 attacked the Council on Foreign Relations
for including Muslim points of views in its newsletter, the group's
president, Leslie Gelb, dubbed Emerson the "grand inquisitor."
(Forward, 5/10/96)

The Miami Herald's highly regarded senior writer, Martin Merzer--who
has experience as a bureau chief in Jerusalem--demolished many
of Emerson's and The Tampa Tribune's claims in a March 1998 article
(3/22/98). Prior to publication, Emerson sent a letter to the
Herald's top editor, Doug Clifton, with copies to Jewish leaders,
in an attempt to derail the story. The letter called Merzer,
who is Jewish, "nothing short of racist."

Subsequently, in a publication run by Emerson allies that has
become his bully pulpit, the Journal of Counterterrorism &
Security International (Spring/98), Emerson published what he
claimed was a transcript of his interview by Merzer. The "transcript"
presents Merzer as stammering and admitting to extraordinary
ignorance. Merzer calls the transcript a fabrication. "It's
crap," he says. "A few tiny kernels of truth surrounded
by a mountain of lies."

Ironically, despite Emerson's many attempts to silence his critics,
he spends much of his time nowadays wailing that he's the victim.
Recently, an NPR producer was moved by protests over Emerson's
anti-Muslim prejudice to stop using him as an expert on the network.
That prompted Emerson fans, such as Boston Globe columnist Jeff
Jacoby (8/31/98), to cry "blacklisting"--never bothering
to note that Emerson is a blacklister with few rivals

MONEY TRAIL

As recognition of Emerson's liabilities has grown, he has handed
his bullhorn to less controversial fellow travelers. Retired
federal agents Oliver "Buck" Revell and Steve Pomerantz,
who run a security business, showed up echoing Emersonisms in
an October 31 Washington Post article warning of conspiracies
and front organizations.

In an interview prior to the article's publication, the co-author
of that piece, John Mintz, said he was aware that Emerson was
highly controversial. The Post's solution: Don't mention Emerson
but use his allies. (Mintz had been provided with material documenting
links among Emerson, Pomerantz and Revell.)

The three "experts" spend a lot of time congratulating
each other on their courage and expertise. Pomerantz, for example,
has written that Emerson "is actually better informed in
some areas than the responsible agencies of government."
(That came as news to Bob Blitzer, the FBI's top counterterrorism
official, who says Emerson "doesn't have access to any high-level
FBI intelligence.")

Revell's credits include quashing an investigation of the Iran-Contra
arms smuggling operation (Leslie Cockburn, Out of Control, p.
231). Revell also acknowledges another member of the fraternity
is Yigal Carmon, a right-wing Israeli intelligence commander
who endorsed the use of torture (Washington Post, 5/4/95), and
who has stayed at Emerson's Washington apartment on trips to
lobby Congress against Middle East peace initiatives (The Nation,
5/15/95). An Associated Press reporter who has dealt with Emerson
and Carmon says: "I have no doubt these guys are working
together."

Says Vince Cannistraro, an ABC consultant and a retired CIA
counterterrorism
official, of Emerson's allies, Pomerantz, Revell and Carmon:
"They're Israeli-funded. How do I know that? Because they
tried to recruit me." Revell denies Cannistraro's assertion,
but refuses to discuss his group's finances.

Emerson's own financing is hazy. He has received funding from
Scaife. Some Emerson critics suspect Israeli backing. The Jerusalem
Post (9/17/94) has noted that Emerson has "close ties to
Israeli intelligence."

"He's carrying the ball for Likud," says investigative
journalist Robert Parry, referring to Israel's right-wing ruling
party. Victor Ostrovsky, who defected from Israel's Mossad intelligence
agency and has written books disclosing its secrets, calls Emerson
"the horn"--because he trumpets Mossad claims.

PRESUMED CREDIBLE

Emerson is aided by those who appear to be ignorant of his record,
or who fear reprisal from his backers. He testified in February
before a Senate subcommittee chaired by Sen. Kyl. The testimony
accused most major American Muslim organization of terrorist
connections. "We presumed him to be credible [because] he
is known to have contact with street agents," said Jim Savage,
at the time a Kyl staffer. "He represented his findings
as authentic. We haven't verified them."

After the NPR spat over the summer, Jacoby's column quickly bludgeoned
the network into capitulation. Jeffrey Dvorkin, NPR's news chief,
kowtowed and stated in a letter to the Boston Globe that Emerson
"has never been banned from NPR and never will be. Emerson
is one of many commentators available to NPR on events involving
his area of expertise (terrorism and counter-terrorism). No doubt
there will be other opportunities for him to appear again."

A WARNING TO US ALL.

(John F. Sugg [email: JohnSugg@a...] is senior editor of the
Weekly Planet, the alternative newspaper in the Tampa Bay area.
He regularly writes media criticism, including articles on Steven
Emerson and The Tampa Tribune's coverage of Muslims. Sugg has
received three threatening letters from Emerson's lawyer
seeking--unsuccessfully--to
deter further reporting.)