by Daniel Hopsicker
March 15--Venice Florida
While the media spotlight
was on the mis-cues at the perennially "troubled" INS, the real news this
week was that Rudi Dekkers was telling reporters a significantly different
version of his relationship with terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta than
he gave in the wake of the September 11 disaster.
Several key details in Dekker's
public account of Mohamed Atta's stay in this country changed, even as,
claiming to feel "vindicated," Dekkers tried to use the INS snafu to his
public relations advantage.
"When they hit the buildings
they were approved to be here," Dekkers insisted, indicating himself to
be a man of principle who would never teach people to hit buildings with
airplanes until they had been vetted by the proper authorities.
Anyway, that's his story.
But it is one he is having an amazing amount of difficulty sticking to.
"Sometimes we all feel the
heat"
Dekkers was not the only
one trying to get some public relations mileage from the INS debacle. In
addition to provoking "outrage" on Capital Hill, the hapless INS's bungling
was said to have made even President George W. Bush "pretty hot."
And suddenly it seemed the
tide of public opinion was turning against the lowly INS, America's Slacker
Guardians of our Porous Borders, and a finger of blame began to be pointed
towards an otherwise swell bunch of guys who spend most of their time standing
around in the hot sun at border crossings doing their level best to look
the other way.
Nobody ever said life was
fair.
More importantly, while speaking
with reporters after receiving the now-famous letter in which the INS cordially
invites two dead terrorists to stay, Dekkers’ cast further doubt on his
own credibility by blithely changing his testimony on key points like when
Atta started flying lessons, or how much he paid for them.
Perhaps it is only of interest
to (Anderson?) accountants, but we have found ourselves fascinated as Dekkers'
has so far told three different stories about how many pieces of silver
he collected per terrorist.
At first, Atta and Marwan
each paid $10,000.
That figure was later quietly
revised to $20,000 apiece.
Finally, this week, the Atta-Dekkers
"contract" grew once again, to almost $30,000 for each.
Nobody has mentioned it so
we will:
This totally negates the
stated purpose for the terrorist presence in Venice, which as you'll remember
was to save a buck on flight training.
According to aviation training
experts we spoke to for half of what Rudi Dekker's was charging you can
become a flight trainer yourself.
Moreover, the chief flight
instructor at neighboring Jones Aviation in Sarasota, where Atta and Marwan
trained for six weeks, insisted in an exclusive interview with the
MadCowMorningNews that Dekkers was flat out wrong when he told reporters
that Mohamed Atta already had a private pilot's license when he entered
the U.S.
That's pretty basic information.
How can so many crucial facts
be in dispute?
The question underscores
how little has been made public about the subjects of the biggest American
criminal investigation since the Kennedy assassination.
"Lone nut cadres always act
alone."
In the days immediately after
the Sept 11 tragedy Dekkers was quoted in numerous news accounts saying
that Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi began flight training at Huffman
Aviation in early July of 2000. Some published reports gave the date of
Atta's first lesson at Huffman as July 3rd
After this six month sojourn
spent learning to fly in this quiet retirement community located midway
between Tampa and Naples on the Gulf Coast of Florida, Atta and his cadre
moved on to more advanced training on Florida’s east coast around Miami.
So, at least, goes what remains
of the official story of Mohamed Atta, Islamic Fundamentalist.
But even Rudi Dekkers himself--one
man who should know for sure--contradicted this generally-accepted chronology
of Mohamed Atta’s stay in the U.S.
While fielding questions
about his role in the INS flap Dekkers told the Associated Press that "Atta
and Al-Shehhi had completed their immigration paperwork on Aug. 29, 2000,
just before they began their six-month flight instruction program at the
school."
Just before.
"Its my party, and I'll scowl
if I want to."
Was Dekkers now saying that
Atta and Marwan didn't start flight training until August 30 at the earliest,
seven weeks later than he stated in the aftermath of September11th?
And if Mohamed Atta wasn't
scowling at his flight instructors and everyone else at the Venice Airport
for seven weeks that summer, who had he been scowling at?
And where?
Atta's flight records, obtained
by the MadCowMorningNews, clearly show Atta's flying history with Huffman
commencing July 6.
So Dekkers has once more
been caught lying. And its his story of Mohamed Atta & the Venice
Flying Circus which we're meant to believe?
Today Americans can learn
more about a story like "Local man attempts to avoid arrest by forging
another man’s name on traffic ticket," than we can about the biggest
crime against humanity of the still-young 21st Century.
As for the question of who
ultimately is to blame for the tragedy?
Today's best guess seems
to be the INS.
Could they be the "global
network" we keep waiting to see?
Not unless the swells start
hanging out in Laredo, they're not.
What does that leave?
Precision timing when you
least expect it
In an operation nearly the
equal in pin-point accuracy of Atta's own swan dive into the World Trade
Center Towers the INS letter was mailed on March 6 and scored a bulls-eye
five days later, arriving in Dekkers’ inbox on precisely the six month
anniversary of the disaster.
Consider: at some point fairly
recently, the INS letters, containing the names of the most heinous villains
in living memory, had been stuck into an envelope, and sent out...
Even the New York Times raised
an eyebrow. "The error seemed particularly difficult to explain, because
Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi were among the most infamous of the 19 hijackers,"
said the Times.
"We don’t understand why
this came in today, and why this was not done a year go," said Dekkers.
The answer to the question
of why two INS letters inviting dead terrorists to stay showed up in Rudi
Dekkers mailbox on precisely the six month anniversary of September 11
is, sadly:
"We may never know."
It was a triumphant performance
for Dekkers, who was widely portrayed as feeling "vindicated."
"I could not show that we
applied for the right paperwork. Therefore I am happy that I can do that
now."
"So you feel vindicated?"
"Yes."
Not widely disclosed even
today is the fact that that not two, but three of the four planes commandeered
by the terrorists were piloted by people who "just happened" to have learned
to fly at the tiny off-the-beaten-path Venice Airport.
Left out of most news accounts
is the fact Siad Al-Jarrah learned to fly next door to Dekker’s operation
at a second flight school, that of Arne "one damn Dutch boy too many" Kruithof,
also like Dekker's a native of the Netherlands.
In fact, a veritable squadron
of terrorist pilots trained in Venice, including several "America's Most
Wanted" Hamburg cadre guys still eluding capture.
Also eluding capture, though
we have no evidence they have been to Venice Florida, are , of course,
Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar.
Mullah Omar! Now there's
a real blast from the past!
He's been heard from about
as much as a one-hit television actor who makes a really bad career move.
Mullah Omar is the Philip
Michael Johnson of international terrorism.
Mullah Omar has been disappeared.
Sinking into deserved obscurity
does not, however, seem to be what fate has in store for Rudi Dekkers.
He and his Venice flight school students—Atta and Marwan—have received
so much attention since 9/11 that Rudi thinks we should begin to think
about "Movin’ On."
"I don’t expect when I
get in on Monday morning to get two permits for Atta and Al-Shehhi," Dekkers
said. "I thought they were behind me already and my life goes on."
"Not so fast, bub, is what
we want to tell him."
There is another story still
to surface, a so far secret story, a story which began unraveling this
week and is not about inept federal agencies like the INS...
There is another Agency of
the Government of the United States whose good offices, apparently, resulted
in Mohamed Atta and his terrorist cadre finding themselves in Venice, Florida
during the summer of the year 2000.
Usually reliable sources
have confirmed to the MadCowMorningNews that this agency is not the INS.
Dekkers, who said he faced
scrutiny in the media after the attacks for admitting the students, said
the INS forms showed he had followed the law.
"The forms, filled out by
an assistant at Huffman, indicated that both men met the English language
requirements to study at the school," stated the AP story. "Atta listed
his nationality as Egyptian, while Al-Shehhi said he was from United Arab
Emirates."
The AP story said, "On the
form, filled out by a Huffman assistant, Atta's name is spelled "Mohomed."
What the AP failed to note
is that the mis-spelling might have owed something to the fact that the
18-year old Huffman Aviation assistant who filled them out, Nicole Antini,
was just then also being sexually harassed by Rudi Dekkers, her beefy middle-aged
boss, according to a lawsuit for sexual harassment which Dekker’s was
forced to settle recently for an undisclosed sum.
The AP also let slip that
the documents filled out indicated the terrorists academic term at Huffman
was for up to 12 months, and would cost $27,300.
What no one has noted till
now is that this is the third mutually-contradictory account Dekkers has
given so far on the simple question of how much the two paid for their
flight lessons.
As we begin to follow the
money we recall some cop wisdom we once heard from a grizzled detective,
about how to take down a criminal when all else fails...
"Al Capone murdered over
500 people," this investigator told us. "You know what he went to prison
for? Tax evasion."
NEXT: ATTA DIDN'T WANT TO
DO IT!
another MadCowMorningNews
exclusive
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