Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta & the 9-11 Cover-up in Florida

WELCOME TO TERRORLAND: MOHAMED ATTA

& THE 9-11 COVER-UP IN FLORIDA

BY DANIEL HOPSICKER

MAD COW PRESS, 400 PAGES, $29.95

T THE CENTER OF the Sept. 11 legend is the man known as Mohamed Atta: ringleader and pilot of the 767 that slammed into the North Tower. Atta's sojourn in Florida in the months prior to the attacks has been woefully neglected by the dominant media. Fortunately, investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker dug into Atta's time in Florida, and what he came up with is sordid, provocative and should put to rest once and for all any notions that Atta was any kind of Muslim, let alone a "fanatic."

Huffman Aviation, the Florida flight school that Atta and several of the other alleged hijackers attended, was owned by Rudi Dekkers, a Dutch national convicted of a massive fraud in his homeland. Dekkers was a fixture in the local papers for his consistent inability to pay Huffman's rent, yet in October 2001, writes Hopsicker, he was sufficiently flush to pay off a $50,000 judgment-his financial difficulties had lifted as if by magic.

In July 2000, the same month that Atta and his associate Marwan Al-Shehhi began their lessons at Huffman, a Lear jet belonging to Dekkers' financial backer Wallace J. Hilliard, a retired insurance executive from the Midwest, was seized by the DEA with 43 pounds of heroin on board. Hilliard, who has a history of involvement with financially unsound flight schools, was also running a charter airline out of Orlando. The jet in question was part of this enterprise, making weekly runs to and from Caracas, Venezuela. Hopsicker goes into great and fascinating detail delineating the connections linking Dekkers, Hilliard, Atta, Clinton campaign financier Jackson Stephens and the Florida dope trade. Huffman Aviation sits at the tip of an iceberg so huge there's barely enough water to float it.

As Atta's live-in girlfriend for two months, former "lingerie model" and "exotic dancer" Amanda Keller should be a household name by now. Given our taste for sex and violence, one would think that the media would've trumpeted her allegations that Atta was a coke fiend and a belligerent drunk, or that he broke into her apartment and chopped up five newborn kittens when she dumped him. But this doesn't dovetail with Atta as "Islamic fundamentalist," so maybe the story was spiked in the interest of consistency.

The web Hopsicker weaves is well-researched and possessed of a tensile integrity that fleshes out the connections between the Bush and Clinton administrations. It should serve as an excellent corrective for anyone foolish enough to believe that voting for Clinton surrogate John Kerry will in any way arrest the ongoing rape of America.

ALAN CABAL