Verschijningsdatum: Begin april 2019
Date of appearance: Early april, 2019

ISBN: 978-94-6338-567-1
Paperback: 22,95 euro

Verkrijgbaar via de boekhandel of:

Uitgeverij Aspekt
Amersfoortsestrraat 27
3769 AD Soesterberg
Tel. 0031 (0)346 35 38 95
e-mail: info@uitgeverijaspekt.nl
www.uitgeverijaspekt.nl

Inhoudsopave:

1. Gaf Henry Kissinger in 1970 aan de CIA opdracht om Egon Bahr af te luisteren?
2. De succesvolle ‘Operatie Rosewood’: lijst van Oost-Duitse spionnen in handen van de CIA
3. Successen van de CIA in Polen onder de Amerikaanse president Ronald Reagan
4. Een ernstige tegenslag: het verraad van Aldrich Ames
5. Waarom de CIA en Jimmy Carter in 1978/79 in Iran faalden en de val van de prowesterse sjah niet zagen aankomen
6. Geheime CIA-operaties tussen 1982 en 1997: ‘Maak met een videocamera geheime opnamen van de weg naar Sarajevo!’
7. Verhinderde en mislukte aanslagen op passagiersvliegtuigen
8. ‘Renditions’, geheime CIA-vluchten, verhoren en geheime gevangenissen
9. De inzet van drones in Pakistan, Jemen en Afrika
10. Successen en tegenslagen bij de jacht op Osama bin Laden (1995-2011)
11. Een ernstige tegenslag : het verraad door de met al-Qaida samenwerkende ‘informant’ Humam Khalil al-Balawi
12. De CIA onder president Donald Trump.

Opmerking vooraf:

In de zomer van 1982 kwam ik in Washington via John Barron voor het eerst in contact met de CIA. Tussen oktober 1982 en eind september 1997 stond ik in regelmatig contact met opeenvolgende CIA-officieren. Op één uitzondering na, waren die allen verbonden aan de Amerikaanse ambassade in Den Haag. Als een CIA-officier weer naar elders vertrok of naar Amerika terugkeerde, werd ik door hem of haar steeds aan zijn of haar opvolger voorgesteld.

De belangrijkste kwesties waar ik mee te maken kreeg, waren het maken van video-opnamen van de weg naar Sarajevo (november 1992) en herhaalde waarschuwingen in 1995 en 1996 voor Osama bin Laden, Islamic charities en misbruik van asielprocedures door radicale moslims. Ik kreeg hierover een aantal uit de Arabische pers vertaalde artikelen en zogenaamde COUNTERTERRORISM UPDATES.  Op aandrang van de CIA publiceerde ik hierover in maart 1997 een boek, waarin onder meer op bin Laden werd ingegaan. Op 20 juli 1995 publiceerde ik in het Reformatorisch Dagblad  een artikel over bin Laden, getiteld Fundamentalist gebruikt humanitaire dekmantel. Dit was grotendeels  op CIA-materiaal gebaseerd.

In mei 1996 kreeg ik van de CIA de geheime Backgrounder No Safe Haven. Dit ging vooral over het misbruik van asielprocedures en waarschuwingen van de Egyptische president Hosni Mubarak. Dit CIA-document werd later samengevat in mijn boek over ISIS (uit 2015), getiteld De haat mag niet overslaan naar onze straten, alsmede in Elsevier van 27 juni 2015, Veilig thuis voor kwaadwillenden. Niemand wist in 2015 echter dat dit deels op CIA-materiaal uit mei 1996 (!) was gebaseerd.

Ik ben overigens géén aanhanger van de nogal grillige en ijdele president Donald Trump, al meen ik wel dat zijn politiek met betrekking tot Israël, China en Russisch aardgas voor Europa (via een pijplijn door de Baltische Zee) juist is geweest. Maar het is niet goed om kritisch nieuws over Trump als fake news aan te duiden. Bovendien hebben de Russen zich in 2016  door middel fake news (‘desinformatie’ is een oude term voor de Russische geheime dienst) actief met de Amerikaanse presidentsverkiezingen bemoeid.

Korte inhoud van het boek:

Onder president Donald Trump komen de Amerikaanse inlichtingendiensten weer in het nieuws. Vroeger was vooral de CIA doelwit van kritiek. Maar nu zijn diezelfde media vol lof over de CIA, terwijl er eigenlijk niet veel veranderd is.

De CIA kende veel meer successen dan het grote publiek weet, maar er waren ook teleurstellingen en fouten. Zo duurde het na de aanslagen van 11 september 2001 liefst tien  jaar voordat Osama bin Laden kon worden uitgeschakeld. En bij ontvoeringen van terreurverdachten werden ernstige fouten gemaakt. Een zware tegenslag was het voorraad door Aldrich Ames.

Anderzijds droeg de CIA bij aan de ondergang van het communisme in Polen, vooral door de hechte vriendschap tussen CIA-chef Bill Casey en de uit Polen afkomstige paus Johannes Paulus II. Bovendien voorkwam de CIA meerdere grote aanslagen, zoals eentje die het Londense vliegveld Heathrow als doelwit had.

Bovendien worden in dit boek voor het eerst geheime CIA-operaties tussen 1982 en september 1997 beschreven. Zo werden er tijdens de burgeroorlog in Bosnië video-opnamen van de weg naar Sarajevo gemaakt. Dit speelde in november 1992.

Tijdens de Koude Oorlog luisterde de CIA mogelijk in opdracht van Henry Kissinger een belangrijke Duitse politicus af, die, zoals later bleek, inderdaad met de hoge KGB-officier Vjatsjeslav Kevorkov (deknaam ‘Slava’) in verbinding had gestaan. Dit was met medeweten van de vroegere KGB-chef Joeri Andropov.

De auteur had een lang interview in Luxemburg met Arnold Silver, de bij deze afluisteroperatie betrokken CIA-agent, alsmede met Brian Crozier in Londen. Crozier was bevriend met CIA-directeur Bill Casey en met Silver. Casey vertelde hem dat alle documenten hierover op bevel van president Jimmy Carter en zijn toenmalige CIA-chef Stansfield Turner waren vernietigd. Crozier vertelde mij bovendien dat Silver bij de CIA was ontslagen. Zie hierover hoofdstuk 1.

In Stephen Dorrils standaardwerk over MI6. Fifty Years of Special Operations (Londen 2000) worden zowel Silver als Crozier als serieuze bronnen opgevoerd.

De gepensioneerde CIA-officier Willam J.  Daugherty schreef  in 2001 het hoogst interessante artikel Behind the Intelligence Failure in Iran. Hij stelt dat de CIA onder Carter zó ernstig was verzwakt, dat men de val de prowesterse sjah niet zag aankomen. Dit artikel wordt in hoofdstuk 5 samengevat.

Uitgebreide positieve recensie en samenvatting:

‘Surfing Ann’s Boeken Blog’, 9 september 2019

‘Kortom, Niet alles wat de CIA doet is verkeerd van Emerson Vermaat is een interessant boek dat laat zien dat de CIA ook veel goede dingen doet, dat niet alles verkeerd gaat. Het is een interessant tijdsbeeld van 1970 tot begin dit jaar waarin de auteur ook zijn persoonlijke ervaringen, belevenissen met de CIA vertelt.’

‘Schitterende cover.’

I Was The First Journalist To Write About Osama Bin Laden In A Book And The CIA Tipped Me Off.

By Emerson Vermaat, M.A. (law)

I was the first journalist to write about Osama bin Laden in a Dutch book that appeared on March 7, 1997. The full title of that book was ‘In Naam van Allah…’ Islamitisch Fundamentalisme en Terrorisme (‘In the Name of Allah…’ Islamic Fundamentalism and Terrorism’) published in Utrecht, the Netherlands, by De Banier. The same publisher also published the doctoral dissertation written by former Dutch military intelligence officer and Sovietologist Marcel de Haas.

Many Islamic terrorists claim that they act or acted in the Name of Allah, shouting Allahu Akhbar! (‘Allah is Great!’) That is why the title of my book was ‘In the Name of Allah…’

But it was a secret source in the CIA that wanted me to write this book on radical Islam. His specific request was to focus as much as possible on Osama bin Laden (in 1995 and 1996), Ayman al-Zawahiri (in the summer of 1996) and dubious Islamic charities which channel money to radical Muslims and their organizations and mosques.

With the assistance of the same source I also wrote a chapter on Iran’s involvement in the killing of Kurdish opponents (from the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran KDPI) in a Greek restaurant called ‘Mykonos’ in Berlin in September 1992 and the subsequent Mykonos Trial Berlin. He provided me with translations from Arab newspapers, Al-Hayat of August 24, 1995, for example. (All other  references to Arab newspapers in my book are from the same CIA source, by the way.) I also paid attention to the so-called Mykonos Affair in a TV broadcast of the Dutch current affairs programme ‘2Vandaag,’ on December 9, 1996 and interviewed Otto Schily, a prominent Social Democrat and Iran critic who would later be an excellent Interior Minister. The viewer’s rate of my TV-program on that day was more than one million.

First CIA warnings about Osama bin Laden in the summer and autumn of 1995

In my Dutch book on Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism I devoted four pages to Osama bin Laden, the so-called ‘Banker of Islamic Jihad.’ I also mentioned his former ally Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a notorious war criminal who used to throw acid in the faces of women he didn’t like. (The CIA made a very serious mistake when they supported Hekmatyar for more than decade, regardless of the warnings from American Afghanistan expert Rosanne Klass whom I knew quite well.)

 ‘During the Afghan war (against the Soviets, between 1979-1988) bin Laden financed the trips of Islamic extremists,’ I wrote in my Dutch book. He later settled in Sudan, where he set up training camps, but returned to Afghanistan in June 1996. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, an extremely dangerous Muslim terrorist from Egypt, who would later be bin Laden’s deputy, is also mentioned in my book. He was one of the many so-called ‘returnees from Afghanistan,’ also referred to as Arab Afghans. (Arab jihadists who fought in Afghanistan.) Al-Zawahiri had also joined the jihad against the Soviet occupiers in the 1980s. In this context I quoted from the Egyptian newspaper Al-Majallah (dated July 22, 1995). This article had also been translated by the CIA.

But the very first time that my secret CIA source told me about Osama bin Laden was in June/July 1995 (!). He gave me a series of articles on bin Laden which somehow had been faxed from Langley to the American Embassy in The Hague, the Netherlands, on the morning of July 27, 1995. ‘Do take note of Osama bin Laden,’ I was told, not once but several times in the summer and autumn of 1995. ‘We want you to mention him in a book. It must be a Dutch book, you are not allowed to use any of this material in the United States.’ (The CIA is formally prohibited from planting stories in the ‘domestic’ American press, so I was told.) Most of the articles were translations from the Arab press. For example, there was a lengthy article on Asama (=Osama) Ben (=bin) Laden Establishes Media Organization and Printing House to Support Fundamentalism.’ This article appeared in the Egyptian newspaper Rose El-Youssef on May 15, 1995, and was later confirmed by other sources. Bin Laden was in Sudan at the time, but he had two special representatives in London, namely Khaled Al-Fawwaz (from Saudi Arabia) and Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (from Syria). Both were known to MI5, the British Security Service.

The first article on Osama bin Laden that I got from my CIA source in the summer of 1995 was a copy of the April 10, 1994, issue of The New York Times: ‘Saudis Strip Citizenship from Backer of Militants.’ ‘Saudi Arabia has responded slowly to complaints from Arab countries victimized by Islamic violence, particularly Egypt, Tunesia and Algeria, which asked that it reign in its rich fundamentalists.’ (There is nothing new under the sun, by the way…)

I received another series of articles on bin Laden at the end of  November 1995. This included the above mentioned Rose El Youssef article. Some other articles were also originally in English, for example an article from The Arab Press Service (APS), dated May 22, 1993. This article mentioned Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak’s warning against ‘fund raising by private groups which could channel money to Islamic militants’ and the dubious role of Osama bin Laden, ‘who is thought to be one of the main financiers of the Arab Afghans.’ I quoted this article in Chapter 3 of in my  book De Geheime Oorlog Tegen Terreur: De Rol van de CIA, the NSA en de Mossad’ (The Secret War on Terror: The role of the CIA, the NSA and the Mossad), writing that ‘it was as early as 1993 that Mubarak warned against Osama bin Laden.’

CIA Backgrounder on Mubarak’s warnings against too liberal European asylum policies

It was in June 1996 that my source gave me the Backgrounder: No Safe Haven. It was also about Mubarak, who obviously was quite worried about too liberal European asylum policies. ‘Egyptian President Mubarak has called for an international conference on terrorism. High on his agenda for the conference are measures that would deprive terrorists of their safe havens. All too often terrorists take refuge behind false claims of political persecution. Mubarak expects a positive response from the countries accross Europe and the Middle East that are already tackling the thorny issues of extradition and criminal prosecution.’

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was not satisfied with the summit of the peacemakers. Representatives of 29 countries gathered in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh on March 13 (1996) in the wake of a series of terrorist bombings in Israel.” ‘Mubarak said he had warned in 1986 that regional terrorism would spread. Now that it had, he expressed the hope that more international cooperation on terrorist issues would take place. Mubarak singled out the need to deprive terrorists of their safe havens. He accused Sudan and “certain nations” of giving wholesale aid and comfort to terrorists. However, Mubarak had also criticism for European nations, especially Great Britain, which have given political asylum to Egyptians wanted in Egypt on charges of terrorism.’

‘Interior Minister Al-Alfi welcomed remarks by British Prime Minister John Major made shortly after the Sharm El Sheikh meeting. As a sign that Britain is rethinking its asylum policies. Major said it was time to look at not only those who commit terrorist acts but also those who take advantage of political asyum to forster terrorism elsewhere.”

Major, however, did not keep his word. Nevertheless, when Osama bin Laden himself tried to apply for asylum in Britain, his request was flatly turned down by Interior Minister Michael Howard. This was shortly before the notorious Saudi terrorist planned to move to London. ‘His presence (in the United Kingdom) was not  conducive to the  public good,’ Howard said in January 1997, according to the excellent TV-documentary Sudan – Are They Training Terrorists? from Journeyman, London.

Nothing wrong with secret sources!

As a journalist, I did not object to using information from a secret source. And I still feel justified about it, because the information provided to me was basically correct and I was one of the very few journalists in Europe who received detailed and largely reliable information on Osama bin Laden and his network already in 1995, 1996 and 1997.

But the last time I met my source was on September 27, 1997. After that date I didn’t meet anyone from the CIA, except two former CIA officers whom I interviewed for 2Vandaag TV (Bob Baer) or a Dutch newspaper. 

I do not doubt for one moment that there are many other journalists who also received information from intelligence sources, including from sources linked to the American intelligence community. The Washington Post, The New York Times and Yedioth Ahrenoth, Israel’s lagest daily newspaper, would not be able to write many of their stories without frequent accesss to secret intelligence sources from the United States or Israel.

Read, for example, Bob Woodward’s fascinating book Obama’s Wars. He quotes from a TOP SECRET Presidential Daily Brief (PDB), ‘North American Al-Qaeda trainees may influence targets and tactics in the United States and Canada.’ This PDB was dated May 26, 2009.

Or read Ronen Bergman’s book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations.

His version of the killing of high level Hezbollah operative Imad Mugniyeh, however, contradicts the findings of Gordon Thomas, another reliable Mossad expert.

Back in 1997 I sent my book to the Dutch Arabist Dr. Hans Jansen, an authoritative scholar on militant Islam and the life of Mohammed. His favorable reaction encouraged me. He was aware of the fact that I quoted many Arab newspapers and he did not point out to me that there were any errors in these quotes. What Jansen and my Dutch publisher in Utrecht did not know was that a secret source in the CIA had provided me with a lot of material on bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Islamic charities, Sudan and Iran. Was that wrong? Once again, I don’t think so.