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Despite earlier
denials, terrorists in the September. 11 attacks received training
at secure US military bases, a Defense Department spokesman admitted
in an interview Friday.
Three
days after the WTC disaster, Newsweek, the Washington
Post and the Knight Ridder newspapers reported claims that five
of the terrorist hijackers in the September 11 attacks received
training at secure US military installations during the 1990s. The
reports also claimed three of the terrorists had listed their
address as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, and had
participated in military exchange programs for foreign officers at
the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida.
In an
interview with a reporter questioning the vaguely-worded September
16 Pentagon denial, the Defense Department spokesman was asked to
explain the particulars of fuzzy statements in which officials said
"name matches may not necessarily mean the students were the
hijackers," and that discrepancies in biographical data indicate "we
are probably not talking about the same people." (Italics
added.)
Pressed repeatedly to provide specifics, the spokesperson
finally admitted, "I do not have the authority to tell you who
(which terrorists) attended which schools."
So it
appears certain that at least some of the previous denials have been
rendered inoperative, and that a list exists in the Defense
Department which names September 11 terrorists who received training
at US military facilities, a list the Pentagon is in no hurry to
make public. This admission has significant import.
Consider: Foreign nationals training at secure US facilities
do so almost solely at the behest of governments considered friendly
to the United States.
Gaining admittance to the International Officer's School at
Maxwell AFB in Montgomery -- which terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta
was reported to have attended -- would have required Atta to be
someone well-connected with a friendly Arab government. (For the
record, the spokesperson denied that the International Officer's
School attendee named Mohamed Atta is the same Mohamed Atta who
piloted a passenger plane into the WTC, while repeatedly declining
requests for biographical details about a second Arab pilot with the
same name as the terrorist.)
Take
the (online)
resume of someone who indisputably did attend the US Air Force's
International Officers School, for example, as an illustration of
just how connected these foreign nationals must be.
Colonel and Staff Pilot Mohammed Ahmed Hamel Al Qubaisi is
currently a Defense Military Naval & Air Attache at the United
Arab Emirates Embassy US embassy, after previous stints in his
country's Embassy & Security Division as Chief of Intelligence,
and in the UAE's Security Division/Air Force Intelligence &
Security Directorate Security Officer/Air Force Intelligence &
Security Directorate.
Arab
Emirate-wise, International Officer's School graduate Al Qubaisi is
a homeland-security kind of guy.
A
former Navy pilot quoted in Newsweek's September 15 report
stated that during his years on the Pensacola base, "we always,
always, always trained other countries' pilots. When I was there two
decades ago, it was Iranians. The shah was in power. Whoever the
country du jour is, that's whose pilots we train."
The
"country du jour" at US military installations during the 1990s,
according to numerous reports, was Saudi Arabia. Newsweek's
prematurely "discredited" report, for example, states that according
to a Pentagon source at least two of the terrorists trained at U.S.
military facilities were former Saudi Air Force pilots. Mohammed
Atta had a Saudi passport, early reports also indicated. Waleed
Alshehri and Marwan Alsherhri had been living in Saudi Arabia before
they arrived in Florida to train for their missions.
Alleged associates had listed Saudi Arabian Airlines' post
office box in the Saudi city of Jeddah as their home address on
their commercial pilots' licenses. And some of the pilots had
licenses indicating they were sponsored or employed by Saudi Arabian
Airlines, owned by the Saudi government.
Then,
too, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told Washington 10 days
before the September 11 terror attacks that US policy towards the
Arab-Israeli conflict had become untenable. And the October 12
Times of London reports that the White House is frustrated
with the lack of help from Saudi Arabia in freezing Osama bin
Laden's assets and tracking those behind the September 11
hijackings, and that the Saudi regime has so far refused to clamp
down on the assets of bin Laden or other al-Qaeda figures, despite
repeated requests from Washington.
This
official admission -- that the "Terrorist 19" have suspicious
connections that are still-unexplored -- puts even more of a
spotlight on the two Dutch-owned flight schools in Venice, Florida
which were the initial "port of entry" for terrorist pilots inducted
into the US flight training program.
The Two
Venice Dutch Boys
There are over
200 flight schools in Florida. Every terrorist pilot chose one of
the two in Venice, Florida. The two Venice flight schools were the
terrorists' American beachhead.
Rudi
Dekkers' Huffman Aviation was the terrorist's Omaha
Beach.
What
made these two schools so popular with the terrorist
cadre?
Some
flight schools may be slightly more equal than others, as it
happens...
"Some
schools are authorized by the Immigration and Naturalization Service
to issue highly coveted I-20M immigration forms that help foreign
students acquire visas to enter the United States as vocational
students," read one early report about the Florida flight
schools.
Guess
who had one of those "highly-coveted" "vocational status"
visas?
Mohammed Atta, the alleged mastermind of the most vicious
terrorist attack in the history of the world...
Guess
who gave it to him? Rudi Dekkers' flight school, Huffman
Aviation.
Under
the glare of TV lights on the apron of the Venice airport the day
after the tragedy, Dekkers denied any responsibility for the
terrorists' student visas, saying "foreign students must apply
through Immigration and Naturalization Services," which he believes
performs background checks.
"We
send them the paperwork and they go to their embassies," said
Dekkers. But Richard Nyren, a British classmate of the terrorist
pilots in Venice, had told reporters at the same time that it's not
all that easy to get a student visa, even with the help of the
school.
How
did Mohamed Atta happen to get so "lucky" in the mangrove swamps of
Southwest Florida?
He got
his "highly-coveted" I-20M immigration because "some" schools are
authorized by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to issue
them.
Not
"all" schools. "Some" schools. Schools like Rudi Dekkers' Huffman
Aviation.
The
question is: what made Dekker's school so special?
In a
wire service report three days after the WTC disaster, Dekkers was
quoted saying, "I can tell you that there's definitely some flaws in
the system." It has been one of his few completely truthful
statements.
Fact:
Some of the terrorists had enough 'juice,' enough access, to have
gained admittance to training at secure US military facilities. That
argues official government complicity -- leaving aside exactly which
government for the moment -- at a level the current FBI
investigation has not even hinted at.
So
far, the investigation conducted around the world since September 11
has resulted in a finger being pointed directly at an obscure outfit
most people had never even heard of, and their Taliban backers. Did
Al Qaeda and the Taliban bring down the World Trade Center towers
all by themselves?
Or
should the FBI's investigators be looking at other, larger groups
and even nations?
When
the FBI was actively looking for "international networks" which
assisted and harbored the terrorists, were any suspects overlooked?
Were any protected from scrutiny?
Were
Rudi Dekker and Arne Kruithof acting as "cut-outs" for a US
intelligence operation at the Venice, Florida airport? Were they
"funneling" Arab pilots into further pilot training?
If the
past 40 years of American history serves as any guide, we will very
likely never know.
Daniel Hopsicker is the author of Barry and 'the Boys'.
This article first appeared on the madcowprod.com
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