Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta and the 9-11 Cover-Up in Florida

Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta and the 9-11 Cover-Up in Florida, Daniel Hopsicker, MadCow Press, 2007

This in-depth investigation explores one part of the 9-11 story: the activities of terrorist leader Mohamed Atta in Florida before that fateful day.

A major part of the official story is that Atta and his fellow hijackers slipped into America unnoticed and were able to attend flight school without attracting government attention. A person would think that law enforcement, including the FBI, would be interested in finding out the truth. There are numerous instances throughout this book of witnesses being intimidated into silence by the FBI. Soon after the attacks, the FBI raided the local police department, seized all the files on the "owner" of the flight school where several of the terrorists trained, and put them directly onto a military plane to Washington, accompanied by Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

A person named Mohamed Atta was accused of a bus bombing in Israel in the mid-1980s. Even if they were not the same person, wouldn't that have put the name "Mohamed Atta" on some terrorist watch list? A Mohamed Atta is also listed as a graduate of the US International Officers School at Maxwell AFB. The researchers who worked on this book offered to clear up the question for the Pentagon, free of charge, but they were not interested. Assertions from the Pentagon that they were not the same person were not convincing. As many as seven of the hijackers received training at secure military installations. To even be considered for such a program would have required Atta to be on very friendly terms with an Arab ally, like Saudi Arabia.

Much of this book looks at Rudi Dekkers, the "owner" of  Huffman Aviation. A Dutchman who is a fugitive back home in the Netherlands, he is generously described, by people familiar with aviation in Florida, as a "scumbag." He would fall several months behind on his rent at Venice Airport, then suddenly be flush with cash. He deserved to be arrested, several times over, on various state and federal charges. Each time, "high government officials" would tell his accusers to back off. Dekkers was also the subject of a federal task force accusing him of smuggling high technology out of the USA.

A reasonable question would be: Who cares what Atta and the others were doing in Florida before the attacks? If this one part of the official 9-11 story can be so thoroughly discredited, are there other parts of the official story that are similarly worthless? This book is very highly recommended. It is investigative journalism the way it is supposed to work; put a witness statement next to a seemingly unrelated verified fact, and see where the trail leads. This is very much worth reading.