Recorded October 2, 2005
Introduction: Featuring more of the landmark research of Daniel Hopsicker, this program fits another piece of information into the jigsaw puzzle of Mohamed Atta’s activities in Florida in the run-up to the 9/11 attacks. A self-professed Navy Seal took a Venice (Florida) cab-driving job, possibly to spy on Atta and associates. In addition, the program provides critical information about the three suspects arrested for the murder of Florida gambling-boat czar Gus Boulis, whose company was taken over by GOP kingpin Jack Abramoff after Boulis was killed. Among the evidentiary tributaries running through the Boulis murder is one leading toward the late Barry Seal, the subject of Daniel Hopsicker’s first book Barry and the Boys.
Program Highlights Include: Review of the profound discrepancies between the official version of Mohamed Atta’s acvtivities in Florida and the factual record, as investigated by Daniel Hopsicker; review of the links between the Gus Boulis murder and the milieu of both George Bush Sr. and George Bush, Jr.; discussion of the organized crime backgrounds of the three Boulis suspects; discussion of the possibility that the self-professed Navy Seal who squired Atta around in Venice may have been one of the Israeli agents who were tracking some of the 9/11 hijackers around in the United States.
1. Beginning with the subject of Mohamed Atta’s comings and goings in the United States prior to 9/11, the program highlights the profound discrepancies between the “official” (and false) version of Atta’s activities in Florida and the facts as they can been verified. As Daniel has pointed out in his landmark volume Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta and the 9/11 Cover-Up in Florida, Atta was in many places with many people that have never been reported by the mainstream press. In—among other programs—FTR#’s 477, 482, 483, 484, 516, 523, we have examined Daniel’s revelatory work about the “real” Mohamed Atta and the extraordinary efforts by the powers-to-be to obscure the record of what Atta was really doing in the United States and with whom he was doing it. An alleged former Navy Seal named Joe Gesell may well have beem surveilling Atta in the run-up to 9/11. Driving a cab in Venice, this individual left the cab company’s employ shortly after 9/11. In the interview itself (not the article reproduced here), Hopsicker relates that the individual in question was described as having dark hair and being “buff.” Daniel speculates that he may have been one of a number of apparent Israeli counter-intelligence agents following the 9/11 plotters.
“Mohamed Atta may have been under U.S. military surveillance until just days before the 9.11 attack, long after the Tampa-based Able Danger military intelligence operation currently under scrutiny was disbanded, in early 2001. On August 6, 2001, the same day Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi returned to Venice after renting a car at Warrick’s RentaCar in Pompano Beach, FL, and picking up Siad Al-Jarrah at the airport in Miami, the MadCowMorningNews has learned that a self-described former NAVY SEAL named Joe Gesell applied for and was hired as the night driver (they only need one) at Venice Yellow Cab.”
2. “Gesell squired Atta around Venice and Sarasota in his cab on a number of occasions. What raises suspicions that he may have been working for more than just tips is this: after starting his new job on the day of Atta’s return, Gesell quit a month later, just one day after Atta left town for the last time. On Friday, Sept. 14, three days after the Sept. 11 attack, cab driver Bob Simpson, the day driver for Venice Yellow Cab at the time, was contacted by the FBI. According to Simpson, the FBI was intent on finding and interviewing Gesell. ‘I heard a voice say ‘this is Special Agent Joe Anderson from the FBI calling,’ Simpson recalled. “My heart sort of skipped a beat. Then he said, ‘don’t worry, you haven’t done anything wrong,’ and asked if I’d seen pictures of the terrorists, and if I had, wanted to know if I recognized any.’”
(Idem.)
3. “‘I said yes, I recognized Mohamed Atta,’’ Simpson continued. ‘I told him, ‘I’m the day driver for Yellow Cab in Venice, and he was in my cab a bunch of times in August, 2001. The night driver had him even more than I did.’’ The Yellow Cab office manager in Sarasota confirmed that the FBI expressed a keen interest in cab rides Atta took with Gesell. If Gessell is shown to have taken part in unacknowledged U.S. military surveillance of Atta continuing until just before the attack, it would not be uncharacteristic...”
(Idem.)
4. Hopsicker points out that elements of military intelligence had been investigating the Hamburg-based activities of Al Qaeda operatives for a long time before 9/11.
“U.S. military surveillance of Al Qaeda terrorists like Mohamed Atta has been far more extensive than has been so far revealed. The Able Danger unit, for example, was by no means the first military intelligence investigation into the activities of the Hamburg cadre. According to one Army C.I.D. officer there at the time, military investigators were being detailed to Hamburg, Germany, tracking ‘Al Qaeda heroin flows’ from Afghanistan to the West as far back as 1991. Yet, in a discrepancy of monumental proportions, the 9/11 Commission’s final report—which now may not be the final report—concluded that U.S. intelligence agencies were not aware of Atta until the attacks.”
(Idem.)
5. Among the official institutions that have obscured Atta’s trail is the NSA, which destroyed surveillance tapes of some of the 9/11 conspirators shortly after the attacks.
“Little wonder the Pentagon is pressuring the Senate Judiciary Committee to close to the public Wednesday’s hearings on the Able Danger military intelligence unit, as Congressional sources confirmed over the weekend. Also last week Pentagon officials told a hastily arranged briefing for reporters that much data generated by the project has already been destroyed in accordance with standard operating procedure for handling material that might contain the names of Americans. Oddly enough, this is the same excuse used by the secretive National Security Agency—the NSA—in revealing that they had destroyed tapes with 9.11 evidence, including conversations between Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Mohamed Atta, just weeks after the 9.11 attack.”
(Idem.)
6. “‘Analysts at the super-secret National Security Agency, acting on advice from the organization’s lawyers, have been destroying data collected on Americans or US companies since the Sept. 11 attacks — angering other intelligence agencies seeking leads in the antiterrorist probe, according to two people with close intelligence ties,’ reported the Boston Globe on Oct 27, 2001. ‘In heated discussions with the CIA and congressional staff, NSA lawyers have turned down requests to preserve the intelligence because the agency’s regulations prohibit the collection of any information on US citizens. The lawyers said that preserving the information would invite lawsuits from people whose names appear in the surveillance reports.’”
(Idem.)
7. Daniel presents some of the discrepancies between the official story of Atta and company and the verifiable facts.
“The ‘official story’ about Mohamed Atta’s timeline, activities, and associates while in the U.S. is riddled with lies, misdirection and deliberate deception. Documents being destroyed by the Pentagon probably include at least a terabyte on Atta & company’s activities in Venice, Florida. On at least three occasions during the last six weeks of his life, for example, terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta left the jazzier precincts of Miami to travel across the state to the more tranquil pace of life in the retirement community of Venice. The FBI has said nothing about this. The FBI says Atta didn’t live there anymore. The FBI says Atta was already nine months gone. The FBI is lying.”
(Idem.)
8. “So, just what was Atta doing in Venice? It’s a secret.... But the one thing the FBI seems most eager to hide—and it is horrible to have to contemplate that your own government is covering up mass murder—is the identity of who Mohamed Atta was doing it with. Why? Because this discovery would inexorably lead to the organization, or global network that was so clearly smoothing the way for Atta’s Hamburg cadre in America. And then... Then we would know just who in the United States had been doing business, on September 10, 2001, with Osama bin Laden’s thugs—on this end, the U.S. end, where this until-now unidentified enemy is still inside the gates.”
(Idem.)
9. “Here’s a big clue: Mohamed Atta was seen in Venice with ‘flight school owner’ and international con-man Rudi Dekkers, who swore in testimony before Congress that he never saw Atta after he ‘left’ his flight school in December, 2000. For example, according to Bob Simpson and other Venice Yellow Cab employees interviewed by the FBI, Atta took numerous cab rides to and from Huffman Aviation as well as several other locations in Venice during August 2001. On at least two of these occasions Atta was traveling with Rudi Dekkers, a man who testified under oath before Congress that his relationship with the terrorist ringleader ended almost nine months earlier.”
(Idem.)
10. “‘They knew each other well, really well,’ stated cabbie Simpson. ‘They were friends. They were going to a nightclub in Sarasota, talking and very sociable with each other. He and Atta were friends, you could tell.’ Simpson said he first took Atta and Dekkers from Huffman Aviation to James’ Place, a restaurant in downtown Venice. On another occasion he picked the two up at the Pompano Road residence of former Huffman employee Charlie Voss, and took them to a Sarasota nightclub, the Gator Club, which Atta is known to have frequented. (It was Voss, recall, whose home was made available to Atta and Marwan when they arrived in Venice.)”
(Idem.)
11. “The Yellow Cab office manager in Sarasota confirmed that the trips were recorded in the firm’s cab logs. Yet in sworn testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee in March 2002, Dekkers insisted his relationship with the terrorist ringleader had been distant, and ended the previous December, nine months before the attack. Dekkers told the hearing about complaints from his staff that Atta and Al-Shehhi had behavioral problems, that they were not following instructions, and that they also had bad attitudes. ‘On December 24th, 2000, Atta and Al-Shehhi rented a Warrior (N555HA) from Huffman Aviation for a flight,’ the Dutch national stated, telling of his last encounter with Atta.”
(Idem.)
12. “‘Atta and Al-Shehhi returned to Huffman Aviation to make final payments on their outstanding bills. Because they were not taking any more flying lessons, they were asked to leave the facility due to their bad attitudes and not being liked by staff and clients alike. Huffman never heard about or from them again until September 11th, 2001.’ Speaking with reporters, he had been more colloquial. ‘They did not socialize with anyone,’ Dekkers said three days after the attack. ‘They did not go to the bar with us. That Atta guy was an asshole.’ Dekkers is guilty of a lot more than perjury... but its a start. Is Bob Simpson a credible witness? Could he somehow be mistaken in his identification of Dekkers? Not likely... He knew Rudi Dekkers well, he said, from numerous trips to Huffman Aviation to pick up arriving flight students.”
(Idem.)
13. “And Simpson is a retired Navy veteran who saw duty off the coast of Libya, and other Mediterranean hot spots during the 1980’s, and he comes from a law enforcement background: his father was Asst. Chief of Police in Pleasant Hill, California, his brother is a cop, and he has an uncle in the DEA. Moreover, authorities deported three young Saudi students who had just arrived in Venice in early September, just before the attack, based primarily on Bob Simpson’s testimony that they were associates of Atta. So they had no trouble believing he was telling the truth.... Were he to be faced in court with conflicting testimony from Rudi Dekkers, we have no doubt who the jury would believe.”
(Idem.)
14. “During final preparations for the Sept 11 attack, Mohamed Atta’s father was ‘visiting’ his terrorist ringleader son in Venice, Florida. After seeing him on television denying that his son had anything to do with the terrorist hijackings, a number of credible witnesses called the Sarasota office of the FBI to report they had seen Atta’s father in Venice with his son ten days to two weeks before the attack. Closed circuit videotape provided to the FBI as evidence of Atta Senior’s presence appears to have been intentionally erased. The FBI knew about the U.S. visit of Atta’s father, Cairo attorney Mohammed El-Amir, in Venice. So why has someone with clear foreknowledge of an attack which murdered almost 3000 civilians not been brought to justice? . . . .”
(Idem.)
15. Much of the program consists of discussion and analysis of the arrest of three suspected organized crime figures in the murder of casino boat owner (and George H.W. Bush crony) Gus Boulis. After Boulis’ murder in February of 2001, Boulis’ SunCruz casino boat enterprise was taken over by a consortium featuring Jack Abramoff, a leading GOP lobbyist and close associate of indicted House GOP Whip Tom De Lay. For more about the Boulis murder and its links to the Bush family political milieu, see FTR#516. It is interesting—and possibly very significant—that Mohamed Atta and some of the other 9/11 hijackers visited one of SunCruz’s ships just a few days before 9/11/2001, possibly to launder money.
“The investigation into the 4‑year old murder of Sun Cruz Casino boat founder Konstantinos ‘Gus’ Boulis in Fort Lauderdale has begun to reveal hidden connections between Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s gargantuan fund-raising machine, essential to victory in the past two Presidential elections, and a cast of underworld characters not previously thought of as exemplifying what have come to be known as ‘Republican family values.’”
16. “The indictment of three men Tuesday in the Boulis ‘hit’ exposes an unholy alliance in Florida between the national Republican party and the Mob, details of which were first reported in the MadCowMorningNews three months ago (“The Secret World of Jack Abramoff: Terrorists, Torpedoes and Republican ‘Muscle’”). More indictments are expected soon. The trail of suspicion leads directly to Abramoff’s doorstep: the three names already released clearly implicate Adam Kidan, the Casino line’s erstwhile President, in the crime, who wrote checks—duh-uh!—for over $250,000 to one of the indicted men, Gambino goombah Anthony ‘Big Tony’ Moscatiello, 67, of Howard Beach, N.Y, for no easily discernible reason.” (Idem.)
17. “Although lawyers for Abramoff and Kidan, who face trial Jan. 9 on fraud charges, have repeatedly said neither man knows anything about Boulis’ murder, since Kidan was hand-picked by Abramoff to run the unregulated collection of a dozen ships operating off the coast of Florida, Abramoff may even now be wondering who it might be safe to ‘roll on’ if and when he’s indicted for murder. Abramoff, of course, is best known as the target of a federal investigation in Washington into the tens of millions in fees he collected from casino-owning Indian tribes. But the wreckage from his brief and tumultuous time as owner of the gambling fleet threatens to overtake his Washington legal troubles. The breathtaking scope of ‘Cruisegate’ could make it the biggest American political scandal since Iran Contra. Should its tawdry details fully come to light, it might eclipse even the Watergate Scandal.”
(Idem.)
18. Moscatiello (indicted for the Boulis murder) was convicted on a heroin trafficking charge because of the intercession of drug dealer and CIA officer Barry Seal. (For more about Seal, see FTR#’s 503, 512.)
“Already, the dramatis personae includes a familiar name from previous scandals: Barry Seal . . . who was himself murdered on orders, according to his own lawyer’s testimony, of then-Vice President George Bush. . . .”
(Idem.)
Shhhhh....if we don’t tell anyone, no one will notice: