THE HIJACKERS {masterlist}

This post is to link and organize all the posts dealing with the 9/11 hijackers. This does not claim to be a complete or comprehensive list by any means, just a few things I found in my research. Most of the research is a little old, and I'm less-versed in recent developments, but some observations herein are worthy of note. But really for me this is an afterthought - no matter where the attackers came from and how they really attacked, it was the US government and military that were tasked with defending America - and they failed with curious precision.

[click picture to enlarge - open in a new window to match names to faces as you read other posts]

> Identity: who are they and where did they come from?
- The Miracle Passports: Implausibly Tying the Attackers Directly to the Scene of the Crime
- The Three Abdul Almoaris: The cases of confused identity regarding the alleged hijackers are many and well-covered elsewhere. Here I'll cover one telling case I haven't seen anyone else take on. Not that I've really looked. I'd rather keep my illusion of a "hot exclusive story:"
- Strategy and Tactics: The Five Hijackers Trained by the US military?

> Immunity: how did they get here and how did they avoid arrest?
- The Hijacker Express Lane: How'd they get in the country? Through the wide open side door.
- The Buried Reports
- Mission Improbable: Violations of Operational Security that "miraculously" didn't unravel the plot.
- Atta Boy: The Man We Love to Hate and all his glorious idiocy
Applying for a USDA loan to finance the attack

> The Terrorland Connection: Florida and 9/11
- Terrorland I: Daniel Hopsicker reveals a Floida Perfect Bush Circle
- Terrorland II: The Dutchmen Come to Town/Government Work?
- Terrorland III: Learning to Fly
- Terrorland IV: The Dutch Boys Become an Embarrassment
- Terrorland V: Map of coincidence: Fly the Friendly Skies of Terrorland

> No Hijackers
- If not a sucide pilot, what else could have been flying the airplane missiles of 9/11? There's at least one possibility that is "remote" but plausible.
- The Evidence: the audio record is the only serious obstacle
- Ulterior Motives: De-blaming Arabs, blaming Jews, etc.
- The Dangers: Why the no-hijacker theory could be another baited honeytrap

THE LETTER WRITING CAMPAIGN

INSTANT POWDERED TERROR - PART I
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/They Let It Happen
Posted April 18 2007

After the day of 9/11 with its climate of nationwide crisis, confused reports of a dozen hijackings, thwarted attacks elsewhere, the scope and scale of the threat unclear, came a sequence of vulnerable days. The US was still reeling as the death toll solidified, and waiting for a possible second phase of attacks, with experts warning it could be perhaps even deadlier, involving chemical, radiological, or biological weapons But in the weeks after September 11th, nothing that wicked our way came. Things kept making more and more sense, the stock market re-opened, and the fear subsided to a manageable level. As the leaves turned to rusty hues, Americans had just enough time to feel that all was under control if on high alert, the expected retaliation was imminent over Afghanistan, and we had that special post-9/11 familial unity to fill in the gaps and bind the wounds that were just beginning to heal.

Yet it was only days after the devastating attacks that someone somewhere decided it was time to raise the fear level again, and set a chain reaction in motion by dropping deadly samples of weaponized Ames-strain anthrax into several envelopes and sending them through the mail to targets all along the East Coast. The first letter was post-marked September 18, the last, September 25, all headed “9-11-01,” an obvious reference to the days-old attack.

On October 2nd the first victim of the ‘thrax, a photo editor for American Media Inc. named Robert Stevens, was hospitalized in Boca Raton, Florida, his symptoms unknown. (American Media, Inc. is the nation’s leading tabloid publisher, responsible for the National Enquirer, the National Examiner, the Sun, the Star, and Stevens’ paper the Globe.) His diagnosis of inhalation anthrax was made public the following day, and he died on the fifth. As the Florida-shaped “Terrorland” map grew another dot of oddity, the nation at large gasped – no one had died in the U.S. from anthrax in over twenty years.

The cause was uncertain, and the CDC seemed baffled, but less than a month after Al Qaeda’s masterpiece, it didn’t look good. There was speculation as to whether al Qaeda was involved, and investigators checked “materials left behind” by the 9/11 hijackers for traces of Anthrax. (We’ll retirn to hijacker/Anthrax crossover evidence in another post and after some more research). While no such direct link was reported, it was noted by CNN that “Stevens lived about a mile from an air strip where Mohamed Atta […] rented planes,” with the vague implication that he was perhaps exposed to anthrax through his glancing proximity to the plot’s ringleader and lead pilot. [1] Perhaps his living near Atta’s airfield was a factor in his demise and not simply a bizarre coincidence. There are certainly some things that “inquiring minds want to know” that the either the hijackers or the powers behind Shadow 9/11 don’t want them to know. As much of a stretch as that is, If the 9/11 hijackers had been messing with anthrax too, people reasoned, that was scary. It was later proven that Stevens was instead exposed in his workplace, through a piece of mail that would soon be just a point in the emerging pattern of attacks.

From Boca Raton, the chaos rapidly spread to the more reputable media, with anthrax turning up in the offices of CBS News, where an assistant to Dan Rather was exposed. Spores turned up at ABC News, where an employee’s baby was infected, but treated early. Anthrax was sent to NBC News, where an intern for Tom Brokaw was infected. Brokaw was composed but visibly quite pissed on the news that night. The press was targeted also; spores turned up at the Washington Post and the New York Post.

In all several dozen were infected or exposed, and five people in the general public died; Stevens in Florida, a New York hospital worker, an elderly woman in Connecticut, and two Washington-area letter carriers. As October wore on, with these deaths along with dozens of infections reported one by one, Cipro became a household word, anthrax a nation-wide concern – every white powder or any unknown substance at all was suddenly reason for a 911 call. Susan Watts, science editor for the BBC program Newsnight, summed it up that the anthrax attack “was second only to that on the Twin Towers in the degree of shock and anxiety it caused...Some even say the anthrax letters triggered sub-clinical hysteria in the American people.” [2]

The attack also hit home in Congress. On October 15, Tom Daschle, the South Dakota Democrat recently named Senate Majority Leader, received a crudely written letter packed with white powder that tested positive for anthrax. One of his staffers was exposed, but not infected. Daschle’s letter had announced an anthrax attack on the Senate, the only part of the government no longer under Republican control. Parts of eight floors of the Hart Senate office building were evacuated for cleanup. A government source told CNN the anthrax in Daschle’s letter was "high grade, very virulent and sophisticated." [3] These sophisticated terrorists then wrote, apparently in Cray-on, “9-11-01. YOU CANNOT STOP US. WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX. YOU DIE NOW. ARE YOU AFRAID?” The crudely-written, caps-locked letter closed with the lines “DEATH TO AMERICA. DEATH TO ISRAEL. ALLAH IS GREAT.” “Clearly, they were trying to kill somebody,” Daschle told CNN of the unknown sender(s). “What this says to me is that there is an orchestrated effort under way, and that it may hit again. So we need to be ready for it.” [4] Mail in the Senate mail room was sequestered in barrels for inspection, which eventually turned up a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, another Democratic powerbroker, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in charge of approving the President’s judicial nominees. The anthrax in it, the handwriting (TAKE PENACILIN NOW), the closing, and the return address (Greendale School 4th Grade) were identical to the Daschle letter.

The letter to Leahy (D-VT)

The House of Representatives closed its doors on October 17th for a precautionary environmental inspection. Two days later, the Senate closed its doors also. Everyone was evacuated out of their familiar surroundings, as Representative “Butch” Otter (R-Idaho) described it, and the House completely suspended proceedings for this time. It was an unexpected and unsettling, half-week vacation that gave them perhaps a unique perspective on the next task on their agenda.

The Congress came back in when the House and Senate buildings were deemed safe and re-opened on October 22nd. The USA PATRIOT Act was first proposed by Rep James Sensenbrenner the following day. Under fear of germ death, the Congress quickly and overwhelmingly approved the sweeping grant of power to the Justice Department the same day. Objections were lodged, but overruled and passed by yhe House of the 24th, the Senate on the 25th, and was signed into law by President Bush on the 26th. The New York Times reported that “members rose to say that almost no one had read the new bill, and pleaded for more time and more deliberation.... the chairman of the Rules Committee, Representative David Dreier (R – CA) replied jokingly that voting out of ignorance was “not unprecedented.” [5] The vote stood, just a month and a half after 9/11.

It’s clear, then, who benefited from the anthrax attack on the congressional end, but the obvious conclusion was simply too dark to look at. So speculation began, its breathless intensity compensating for its lack of logic.

THE MIRACLE PASSPORTS

While there is some evidence directly contradicting the FBI’s hijacker identification, the very logic behind their strongest positive evidence is itself the weakest link in the chain. For example, the miracle passports:

Al Suqami's Passport, found after plane impact and catastrophic collapse, from which nearly nothing survived.

Just five days after the attack, ABC News reported a remarkable find at the WTC site, where the four “indestructible black boxes” and two cockpit voice recorders were supposedly never found and presumed destroyed. An FBI "grid search” turned up the laminated paper passport of Satam al Suqami (#4). [1] Shortly thereafter, the Manchester Guardian reported, ringleader Mohammed Atta’s passport {#1) was discovered two blocks away from the twin towers. “We had all seen the blizzard of paper rain down from the towers,” the paper noted, “but the idea that Atta's passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged would have tested the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI's crackdown on terrorism.” [2] While it has raised eyebrows in certain circles, as far as the official story, Atta’s incredible passport has passed through INS screens, traffic stops, airport screens, the plane’s explosive impact, and possibly the towers’ collapse before being found and widely accepted as hard proof of his involvement.

On September 13, a “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Student Identity Card” was found at the Pentagon fingering hijacker Majed Moqed (#14), and believed by the secret Service to have been forged. [3] Suicide pilot Ziad Jarrah’s passport (#16) was also found, badly burnt but with just his picture and name intact and readable, at the impact site of flight 93 in Pennsylvania, as pictured below. [3]

Clearly visible and readable: Ziad Jarrah. Not much else survived the crash of Flight 93.

Three attack scenes. Four crashes. Four passports. Four times a miraculous find even one or two of which is beyond the realm of easy believability. But the again acceptance of the official myth has never relied on facts but rather of a deep fear of the alternative, so the evidence has been taken.

Sources:
[1] “No Signs of Survivors: Recovery Efforts Intensify; FBI Launches ‘Grid’ Search.” ABC News. September 16, 2001. Accessed June 19, 2004 at: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/WTC_recovery_010916.html
[2] Karpf, Anne. “Uncle Sam’s Lucky Finds.” The Guardian. March 19, 2002. Accessed December 2, 2004 at: http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/disinfo/deceptions/guardian_usluckyfinds.html
[3] Secret Service report for the FBI PENTTBOM investigation, Oct. 10, 2001. Monograph on 9/11 and Terrorist Travel, Chp 2 - 9/11 Commission.
[4] Thompson, Paul. “The Two Ziad Jarrahs.” http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayjarrah

BOJINKA V: FLORIDA 2001: BOJINKA BECOMES 9/11?

Clearly the U.S. government knew, and had been reminded, that suicide pilots presented a serious threat. But if they’d been watching for Bojinka, they’d have seen 9/11. Murad’s “more trained pilots” would be widely reported to be training inside the U.S. in the months before the attacks, in Minneapolis, Phoenix, and elsewhere, but these reports would go ignored and buried. One famous arrest was made, but no leads beyond that were followed, and all evidence points to purposeful top-down counter-counter-terrorism.

The three out of four 9/11 suicide pilots that trained in Jeb Bush’s Florida were apparently never even reported or noticed at all, even as their plot, it seems, took a serious turn there. In fact, they didn’t seem to know what they were doing at first. While they pursued flight training for big jets, or anything they could get enrolled for, they also were looking at buying their own small planes.

As ABC News reported, ringleader Mohammed Atta, supposedly financed by Saudi billionaires, went to the United States Department of Agriculture in Spring 2001 for a $600,000 loan to buy their first crop-duster. He was turned down, which might have had something to do with his dozen or so not-so-subtle hints he dropped to the loan agent that he wanted to use the plane to attack America. The agent, one Johnelle Bryant, described Atta’s eyes as “black” and “evil,” and she passed a polygraph test. Her superiors placed some sort of gag order on her, but she bravely defied it to sit down and tell her story to ABC (“Face to Face with Evil”). Perhaps it was Atta’s alleged threat to slit Bryant’s throat and steal the money that had something to do with getting turned down, but luckily it didn’t get him reported. She didn’t say a word until after she saw his face on the news in mid-September.

The ABC story explained:
“Being turned down for the loan altered the hijackers' plans. According to law enforcement officials, packing twin-engine planes with explosive chemicals, making it a flying bomb, had been the terrorists' plan since the mid-1990s. When Atta reported to his group that he could not get a loan to buy smaller planes, the plan was switched to hijacking passenger jets, according to what Abu Zabaydah, a top lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, has told American interrogators since his capture.”

We are to believe the evolution from Bojinka to 9/11 happened right there, in front of Johnelle Bryant’s USDA office in mid-2001, as the plotters regrouped from their failure to fund the project with American government loans. One can only wonder how Johnelle feels about this, or whether she even believes her own story or Zabayadah’s extracted confession.

Source: Ross, Brian. “Face to Face With a Terrorist: Government Worker Recalls Mohamed Atta Seeking Funds Before Sept. 11.” ABC News. June 6, 2002. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/ross_bryant020606.html

Terrorland II: THE DUTCHMEN COME TO TOWN

Huffman Aviation’s owner Ruddi Dekkers is relentlessly portrayed by Hopsicker as a greedy, overweight, boorish pervert. He was reportedly indicted on financial charges (fraud and money laundering) in the Netherlands, and while in Florida was sued for sexual harassment (he settled out of court but then failed to pay up). An airport employee noted that Dekkers’ sudden appearance was suspicious, that he “had no aviation background as far as anyone can tell. And he evidently had no use for, nor knowledge of, FAA rules and regs.” [1] 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi received their commercial pilots licenses after training at his school. Not a good track record.

Dekkers had purchased his aviation school in May 1999 on the back of a loan from an American sponsor, Wallace J. Hilliard. [2] Wally Hilliard was a Naples native whom Hopsicker describes as a “70-year old… multi-millionaire businessman and self-styled Mormon Bishop” who apparently moves in elite circles, including having bailed out Jerry Fallwell to the tune of $1 million. [3] A local paper confirmed that though Hilliard financed Dekkers' purchase of Huffman, Dekkers was the sole stockholder. [4]

According to the same local newspaper (the Venice Gondolier), Dekkers ambitions ran into starting a commuter airline called Florida Air. “Florida Air was in service for about two months in 2001, then was grounded for financial reasons,” the paper stated. [5] Dekkers’ business partner in Florida Air, Richard Boehlke later told a reporter that Dekkers “was an oxymoron the day I met him…. I can’t believe anyone handed him millions of dollars to run a business he had no experience in.” But people in high places also threw him endorsement; according to an ad from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris used the airline: the ad reportedly read “as one of Florida's top politicians, Katherine Harris doesn't have much time to do a lot of personal traveling. So she appreciates the convenience that Florida Air offers.” [6]

The other “Magic Dutch Boy,” Arne Kruithof, while quieter, is also highly interesting. It was at Kruithof's school, Florida Flight Training Center, that Ziad Jarrah, suspected pilot of flight 93, earned his wings at the same time his cohorts trained next door at Huffman. Hopsicker maintains that this may have been no coincidence; Kruithof is also Vice-President of Aviation Aspirations, a company he apparently runs with a German man named Pascal Schreier. Aviation Aspirations provides both financial assistance and a “Mentor Program” to help aspiring young flight students around the world. Hopsicker maintains that Schreier operated out of and primarily recruited students in Hamburg, from which all three suspected 9/11 hijackers that trained in Venice came. The company's motto: “Better training because we care.” Hopsicker wondered “Could 'mentor' be just a cute way to say 'handler?’” [7] According to The 9/11 Commission’s Final Report, Ziad Jarrah, unlike Atta and Alshehhi, had his training at Kruithof’s FFTC arranged in advance, while still in Hamburg. [8]

Hopsicker noted some curious services Dekkers and Kruithof allegedly provided to the government. A Venice “airport executive” told Hopsicker that a shady outfit called Britannia Aviation, working out of a hangar at Huffman, had been granted a “green light” from the DEA, a five year contract to run a maintenance facility at the Lynchburg, VA airport. Hopsicker maintained “nothing was known about the company… Britannia Aviation is a company with virtually no assets, employees, or corporate history…the company did not even possess the necessary FAA license to perform aircraft maintenance services for which it had been contracted.” In fact, financial statements prove Britannia to be “a ‘company’ worth less than $750.” Yet the local Venice Police Department “had been warned to leave them alone." [9]

Hopsicker’s argument, fleshed out further in his excellent works, indicates that Dekkers’ instant aviation company was serving a DEA-connected dummy company that had worked with a CIA-connected dummy company known to traffic drugs, while he simultaneously oversaw the training two of the 9/11 hijackers. This ‘Magic Dutch Boy’ gets more magic all the time, and when we consider his neighbor Kruithof's role as well, it seems Hopsicker was indeed witness to either a major, poorly concealed seam of the 9/11 attacks, or at least some played-out drama resembling such.

[1], [9], [10] Ahmed, Nafeez. “The War on Freedom.” 2002. Page 101.
[2], [4], [5] Mudge, Bob. “Huffman Aviation sold.” The Venice Gondolier January 25, 2003. Accessed October 30, 2004 at: http://www.venicegondolier.com/NewsArchive3/012503/tp1vn9.htm
[3] Hopsicker, Daniel. “9/11: The Evangelical Christian Connection.” Mad Cow Morning News.
April 8, 2004. Accessed October 27 2004 at: http://www.madcowprod.com/mc412004.html
[6], [7] Hopsicker, Daniel. “’Magic Dutch Boy’ escapes fiery plane crash: 9-11 cleanup crew at work?” Mad Cow Morning News. July 4 2002. Accessed October 26, 2004 at: http://www.madcowprod.com/mc242004.html
[8] 9/11 cimmission. Final Report. First Edition. Page 224

TERRORLAND part I

One of the more interesting aspects of the hijackers’ adventures in the US was their fondness for that tangle of airports, Air Force bases, flight training schools, sleepy retirement towns, Cuban exiles, drug smuggling, secret CIA operations and theme parks we call Florida. Florida is widely believed to be less an actual state than a CIA-front company and, recently, private playground of the Bush family; now to its list of exports has been added suicide hijackers. We’ve already seen that three of the hijackers may have trained in Pensacola, and the Bukhari-Alomari circle of Saudi pilots in Vero Beach, but we’ve hardly even touched on Florida’s three most famous terrorist trainees, Ziad Jarrah, Marwan Alshehhi and Mohammed Atta.

Here is where I start to feel like I’ve entered the swoon-headed world of convoluted and slippery conspiracy theories that feel like an octopus wrestling match. I could scarcely believe it when I realized it was again back to Florida; where Bush became President, back to Florida where bush became the new post-9-11 president, back to Florida where, we found out, three of the four pilots had prepared for the act that enabled that transformation.

All of this, the Florida connection with all the defining moments of the Bush presidency, was overseen by the President’s own brother, Governor John Ellis “Jeb” Bush; from brother to terrorist to brother and back again, in a too-tight Gordian knot. The knot tightened on September 10th as President Bush paid a visit to Governor Bush on the eve of the attack. It tightened again the next morning as the Florida-trained hijackers attacked New York and Washington, and yet again around four AM on September 12th; with a speed bordering on pre-cognition, federal authorities in Florida had descended on the flight school in Venice, less than twenty miles from where the President had been less than twenty hours before. They confiscated and relocated computers and “boxes of records” to Washington, personally escorted by Governor Bush, after the sun rose, to his brother’s people in Washington. The attack was nearly a day old when the two brothers presumably met again over these files. [1]

By the next day, investigators looking at actual evidence were following other concrete leads to Florida; the BBC reported that Mohammed Atta’s rental car, left in Boston, led authorities to his own and Marwan Alshehhi’s homes in Coral Springs. [2] The two had been taking simulator lessons near there. Soon the story blew up – it turns out that three of the four suicide pilots had also received their initial flight training at two adjacent flight schools at the Venice airport, both opened shortly before the hijackers arrived in town.

“What’s been going on in Florida?” This is a central question of investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker, who has unofficially dubbed the state “Terrorland.” Hopsicker has credentials; he’s a former producer of Wall Street Week (PBS), former executive producer, Global Business (NBC), former investigative reporter for NBC News. [3] i.e. – he’s an establishment guy, so I automatically distrust him somewhat. But more recently he’s been the author of such “conspiranoid” books as Barry and the Boys and, more recently, Welcome to Terrorland. Hopsicker also lives in Venice, Florida, where three of the 9-11 pilots (Atta, Alshehhi, and Jarrah) got their initial flight training. He has looked closely at the flight schools at the venice Airport. where he seems to have a lot of connections in the aviation community (but his sources, knowledgeable though they seem, usually remain anonymous).

Hopsicker has a lot to say about the schools in question, their operators, and their allegedly vast (but factually spindly) connections behind the scenes to Saudi and Venezuelan elites. His material is extremely speculative, sometimes drawing together numerous current conspiracy theories with phrases like “might this have something to do with…” Venice-area journalist John Patten also noted Hopsicker’s “almost pure speculation about recent and current events. The dots are there, and admittedly these are some darned peculiar dots, but Hopsicker is unable to connect them,” or at least to demonstrate to the rest of us precisely how he connected them. Sometimes, Patten wrote, Hopsicker's writings are “akin to grasping for straws from another dimension.” But, he noted:

“[T]he other side of that coin is that it is possible that Hopsicker is absolutely right. Just because someone is paranoid doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't something around worth being paranoid about. Mohamed Atta did live here. So did Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. They did receive flight training here. They did participate in the events of September 11, 2001. Those last four sentences alone should be enough to make the most sensible, well-grounded person more than a little paranoid.” [4]

For starters, and more concretely, there are the Dutch owners of the Venice flight schools themselves. Hopsicker and some of his anonymous sources call these men, Rudi Dekkers and Arne Kruithof, “the Magic Dutch Boys.” One of Hopsicker’s sources pointed out that the Dutch invasion at the Venice airport in mid-1999 was “just about the time the terrorist pilots moved into town and began their lessons,” which apparently actually began a year later, in early July 2000. [5] “Two Dutch boys buying adjacent flight schools which shortly thereafter get 'overrun’ by terrorists is one damn Dutch boy too many,” a “law enforcement source” told Hopsicker. “Its untidy.” [6]

Hopsicker put his big picture as “Mohammed Atta and his terrorist cadre’s flight training in this country was part of a so-far unacknowledged U.S. government intelligence operation which had ultimately tragic consequences for thousands of civilians on September 11.” [7] I'm a little vague on his exact case, but seems to involve Atta at least being a covert CIA assett involved in drug-running operations, though some of this is based on Atta's alleged girlfriend Amanda Keller, who has since declared her testimony was all a lie. Anyway, Hopsicker does not specify why these same assest/whatever then got so out of hand and were not prevented from carrying out their monstrous attack. From the perspective of Shadow 9/11, it seems an obvious possibility that this alleged CIA operation did not go awry, but exactly as planned - it gave plausible credibility to the Patsies' ability to take the blame - if they'd actually meant to be pilots, of course, they'd've studied harder, but close enough. They took leaasons. Hopsicker, perhaps prudently, never makes such a claim outright, focusing on endless speculative detective work which does make fascinating reading.

Sources:
[1] Hopsicker, Daniel. “INS Deporting ‘Magic Dutch Boy’ Rudi Dekkers.” Mad Cow Morning News. December 4, 2002. Accessed October 26, 2004 at:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0212/S00058.htm
[2] “Evidence trails lead to Florida.” BBC News. September 13, 2001. Accessed October 30, 2004 at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1542153.stm
[3], [4] Patten, John. “Death in Venice? Local conspiracy theorist Dan Hopsicker weaves a twisted web of intrigue in the wake of September 11.” Last revised June 6, 2002. Copied October 26, 2004 from: http://www.venfl.com/features/hopsicker.htm
[5] Ahmed, Nafeez. The ar on Freedom. page 101
[6] Hopsicker, Daniel. “Was the CIA running a terrorist flight school?” Online Journal. Oct 19, 2001.
22 March 2004 Accessed December 2, 2004 at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/HOP403A.html
[7] See [6]. Page 101

The Hijacker Express Lane

June 2001: as secret US-Taliban diplomacy devolves into threats of war, an increasing number of foreign intelligence warnings from Germany, Egypt, Russia, Afghanistan, etc. pour in about impending al Qaeda attacks in the US. As the last of the to-be 9-11 “muscle” hijackers enter the United States from Saudi Arabia, the State Department office there starts a little-known one-way “exchange” program called “U.S. Visa Express.” [1] Part of the long-standing friendship between the U.S. and the Saudi kingdom, it was designed to cut down on long lines, allowing Saudi citizens to enter the country without having to be interviewed at a U.S. embassy. [2] At least three of the nineteen hijackers: Abdulaziz Alomari, Salem Alhazmi, and Khalid Almidhar all used the Visa Express program to enter the country. [3]

But this was only part of a wider pattern of (negligence?) regarding Saudi Arabia that allowed in even more of the suspects. Another twelve, all but one of the “muscle” hijackers and Hani Hanjour, the alleged pilot of flight 77, entered the U.S. through the Kingdom’s wide-open door. Sydney Freedburg at the St. Petersburg Times re-traced the 15’s legal journeys to the US and narrowed the troubles down to two State Dept. offices in the Kingdom. “Some of the hijackers got tourist visas to come here after reportedly honing their explosives skills at terrorist training camps in Afghanistan,” Freedburg noted, and at least two, and possibly as many as nine, used stolen passports. He further summarized:

“They exploited a litany of loopholes in the system: Several didn't need an interview for permission to come here. […] Two were later placed on a terrorist watch list, but no one could find them. […] All 19 managed to get U.S. Social Security cards. inadvertently, the U.S. government rolled out a welcome mat for all of them.” [4]

Here, the word “inadvertently” must be momentarily suspended – since intentions are never that clear, let’s just settle for “the U.S. government rolled out a welcome mat for all of them.” ABC News reported in October, 2002 “none of the 15 applications reviewed was filled out properly.” Brothers Wail and Waleed Alshehri applied in mid-2000, listing their occupations as "teater" and “student.” Headed to beautiful scenic "Wasantwn," their Visas were approved.” [5]

These applications were largely handled through the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, which has a history of such openness, Freedburg noted. While serving as a consular officer in Jeddah from 1987 to 1989, Michael Springmann “said he issued more than 100 visas to unqualified applicants after pressure from his State Department bosses. ‘Keep the Saudis happy,’ Springmann said he was told, apparently because they are America's biggest supplier of crude oil.” [6]

Freedburg added the “apparently” part, but Springman himself has actually cited a different reason for “keeping the Saudis happy:” they were, at the time, our biggest supplier of terrorists. In another interview, Springmann told BBC Newsnight and CBC’s Radio One that during his tenure he witnessed the operation of a terrorist “pipeline,” sponsored by the CIA:

“(The) CIA was recruiting terrorists to fight against the then Soviets… I was repeatedly ordered by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These were people who had no ties to either Saudi Arabia or to their own country… Afghanistan was the end user of their facilities. They were coming to the US for training as terrorists. The countries that had supplied them did not want them back.” [7]

Springmann’s testimony paints a picture of an office that served as a conduit, supplying the “end user,” the Afghan Jihad against the Soviet invaders, with a constant stream of undesirables from diverse nations. These same men were then armed and trained and formed connections with each other. After the Jihad, they turned their energies elsewhere and things got ugly. In fact, the Blind Sheikh Omar Adbel Rahman, allegedly behind the 1993 WTC attack, may have entered New York via this pipeline with CIA approval in 1990, even after the afghan Jihad was over – indicating continued CIA cooperation with the al Qaeda nexus after ties were officially cut.

But even before that Springmann didn’t like what he saw, and complained about it to his superiors. As he left the scene, and for years after, he believed his complaints had shut the “pipeline” down. But after 9-11, he has serious doubts that that was ever the case. Over ten years later, Springmann maintains that all fifteen of the 9-11 hijackers from Saudi Arabia were handed their visas through his old consulate office in Jeddah. As we’ve seen above, it seems some were through Jeddah, the rest elsewhere, but his point remains valid.

> CBC” “so what does this suggest, that this pipeline was never rolled up, that it’s still operating?”
> Springmann: “Exactly. I thought it had been, because I’d raised sufficient hell that I thought they’d done it…”
> CBC: “If what you’re saying may be true, many of the terrorists who allegedly flew those planes into those targets, got their U.S. visas through the CIA and your U.S. consulate in Jeddah. That suggests a relationship ongoing as recently as obviously September. […] If the CIA had a relationship with the people responsible for September 11th, are you suggesting therein that they are somehow complicit?”
> Springmann: “Yes, either through omission or through failure to act… by the attempts to cover me up and shut me down, this convinced me more and more that this was not a pipe dream, this was not my imagination…” [8]

Even if the pipeline had been shut down for years, it couldn’t be terribly hard to re-open it and prop open wider with Visa Express-style de-regulation just in time to get the hijackers/patsies/dupes placed for the attack. They traveled in the open under the names the government would later assign, but their identities are nearly all tangled with those of men still alive. At least five of them (including Atta) have even been reported, as in the special September 15 2001 Newsweek, as being men trained at secure US military facilities – or at least confused by name with five such men. [9] All of the hijackers (if we exclude Moussaoui) encountered a law enforcement blind spot. Atta himself got at least two speeding tickets, one of which he refused to pay and got a warrant put out for his arrest! [10] And he issued death threats against a USDA employee when she refused to give him a $600,000 loan to buy a crop duster, remove the seats, and replace them with chemical tanks. [11] None were detained and they almost seem to have been protected by a higher power. Allah, they may have thought… There have been allegations that the hijackers were in fact covert operatives, drug runners, or something of the sort. Given the evidence, it can’t be ruled out.

Whoever the hijackers of 9/11 really were, wherever they really came from, and whoever really supported them, it was the US government that was tasked with protecting the people of this country – yet that government apparently threw open the gates to the barbarians right as they were massing for an attack. It’s not so much a matter of who they are or where they came from, but a matter of how did they get here and how did they avoid arrest? With these insights on the “welcome mat” rolled out we may have our answer… Besides, this embarrassing “bungling” by the State Dept. helped ensure that Visa applications would henceforth be handled by the new Homeland Security Department who promised no such screw-ups. [12]

Sources:
[1] Schmidt, Susan and Bill Miller. . “Homeland Security Department to Oversee Visa Program.” Washington Post. August 6, 2002. Page A13. Accessed November 30, 2004 at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A47861-2002Aug5¬Found=true
[2] Ahmed, Nafeez Ahmed. The War on Freedom. How and why America was Attacked September 11, 2001.” Joshua tree, Ca, USA. Tree of Life Publications. 2002. Page 106.
[3] Camarota, Steven A. “The Open Door: How Islamic Terrorists Entered and Remained in the United States, 1993-2001.” Center for Immigration Studies. Posted June 16, 2002. Accessed November 30, 2004 at: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/701154/posts
[4] Freedburg, Sydney. “Loopholes leave U.S. borders vulnerable.” St. Petersburg Times. November 25, 2001. Accessed November 29, 2004 at:
http://www.stpetersburgtimes.com/News/112501/Worldandnation/Loopholes_leave_US_bo.shtml
[5] Raddatz, Martha. “Sneaking into America: Sloppy State Dept. Paper Work Let Sept. 11 Hijackers Into the U.S.” ABC News. Accessed November 30, 2004 at: http://www.wanttoknow.info/021023abc
[6] See [4]
[7] See [4]
[8] See [4]
[9] “Alleged Hijackers May Have Trained at U.S. Bases: The Pentagon has turned over military records on five men to the FBI.”
By George Wehrfritz, Catharine Skipp and John Barry. Newsweek. September 15 2001. http://www.wanttoknow.info/010915newsweek
[10] Perle and Frum. “An End to Evil.” New York. Random house. 2004. page 69.
[11] Ross, Brian. “Face to Face With a Terrorist: Government Worker Recalls Mohamed Atta Seeking Funds Before Sept. 11.” ABC News. June 6, 2002. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/ross_bryant020606.html
[12] See [1]