Posted on 08/13/2005 9:03:35 AM PDT by TVenn
NEW intelligence reports suggesting that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta arrived in the US in late 1999 or early 2000 - six months earlier than previously thought - are likely to spark a reassessment of public servant Johnelle Bryant's incredible story of a face-to-face meeting with the terrorist.
In an extraordinary 2002 interview later branded a hoax by some media -- including the ABC's Media Watch -- Ms Bryant claimed to have met Atta in late April or early May of 2000 when she worked as a loan officer with the US Department of Agriculture's farm services agency in Florida.
Ms Bryant, who was medically retired from the department last year, said Atta had tried to apply for a $US650,000 US government loan to buy a six-seat, twin-engine aircraft that he wanted to convert to a crop duster.
In her interview with the US's ABC network, Ms Bryant told how Atta became angry when told he was ineligible for the loan and how he became fixated with an aerial photo of Washington DC hanging on her office wall.
When told the picture was not for sale, Ms Bryant said Atta became "very bitter".
"I believe he said: 'How would America like it if another country destroyed that city and some of the monuments in it'."
But despite some independent support for her claims, Ms Bryant's account was dismissed as a fake on the grounds that Atta did not get a visa to enter the US until May 18, 2000, and did not arrive until June 3 that year on a flight from Prague that landed at New Jersey's Newark airport.
Her claims were ignored in last year's 9/11 commission report on the events leading up to the terrorist attacks. The commission accepted the advice of US immigration authorities that Atta did not arrive until June 2000.
But revelations that a military intelligence unit known as Able Danger believed Atta had actually arrived in the US in late 1999, or at the latest very early in 2000, have lent new credibility to Ms Bryant's claims, while at the same time raising questions about the exchange of intelligence between US security agencies.
Investigations are now under way into what was done before September 11, 2001, about Able Danger's identification of Atta and three of the other future hijackers as members of an al-Qa'ida cell operating in the US and why the 9/11 commission also chose to ignore the unit's intelligence findings.
Republican congressman Curt Weldon has accused the commission of ignoring material that would have forced a rewriting of the September 11 events.
Spokesman Al Felzenberg admitted this week the commission had been sceptical when an Able Danger officer briefed it in July last year and said Atta had been in the US in late 1999 or early 2000. The investigators knew this was impossible, Mr Felzenberg said, since travel records confirmed he had not entered until June 2000.
"The information that (the officer) provided us did not mesh with other conclusions that we were drawing," he said. "There was no way that Atta could have been in the US at that time."
But British columnist Mark Steyn, who wrote an opinion article for The Australian last month describing Ms Bryant's meeting with Atta as "the defining encounter of the age", claims US immigration did not keep then -- and still does not keep now -- reliable and comprehensive records of entry by foreigners.
"It (US immigration) cannot authoritatively state the date of Atta's first visit to the US," Steyn said. "If you choose to believe June 3, 2000, as the definitive date of his first visit, that's basically an act of faith. There were a number of sightings of Atta in the US before that time, in Florida and elsewhere."
In his column Steyn attacked Ms Bryant for failing to realise the danger Atta represented because of political correctness.
"She knows an opportunity for multicultural outreach when she sees one," he wrote.
In her interview, Ms Bryant said Atta had threatened to cut her throat and initially didn't want to deal with her because she was a woman.
But she said: "I felt that he was trying to make the cultural leap from the country that he came from. I was attempting, in every manner I could, to help him make his relocation to our country as easy for him as I could."
Ms Bryant recognised Atta from a newspaper photograph after the 9/11 attacks and defied Agriculture Department orders in telling her story to the media.
"The American people, the public, need to be aware that if these men can walk into my office, they can walk into your office, they can walk into anyone's office," she said.
Ms Bryant could not be reached for comment this week but Bob Epling, president of Community Bank of Florida, which let office space to the agency Ms Bryant worked for, said he had no doubt Atta visited the premises.
He said Ms Bryant had referred Atta to the "agriculture-friendly" CBF. "Atta was 15 steps away from walking into our loan department and making an application," Mr Epling said yesterday. "He chose not to."
Daschle and Gephardt
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200404231117.asp
I used to think that way, but now I realize that Bush is a VERY patient man. He has given them all the rope needed for them to hang themselves....the Wilson-Plames also, and they will indeed hang themselves.
Yes, that's true. But I never see any of them actually hang themselves and get publicly discredited, which might happen if they actually went through the trial process (something none of them has ever done).
The press sure won't attack them, since the press is actively encouraging if not sponsoring them. The press just quietly drops them. Notice how Wilson/Plame have suddenly disappeared since it became obvious that they were the "guilty parties" in the whole non-affair?
I can only hope that some information was extracted from Sandy Berger that is perhaps being put to use in bringing this whole 9/11 commission stuff out now. Otherwise, he's simply another Dem operative who was allowed to skate - for actions that would probably have netted a Republican life in prison.
Sandy Burglar could be charged with OTHER CRIMES.....pray...pray.
Remember how many of the President's men (Nixon's) went t PRISON for Watergate!! This is Watergate to Pi! WORLD WAR III has started because of this......it better get the attention it deserves!
Thanks- I'll use that alternatively for my "click the pix" link.
Many thanks- clickable link:
http://www.sptimes.com/News/121201/Worldandnation/Indictment_ties_Mouss.shtml
I agree - this is a heck of a lot more serious and dangerous than Watergate. I sure hope it gets some attention.
Sadly, I don't think the press is really going to switch sides (that is, get on the side of the US) until there's another major attack, and probably only then if they think they can blame it on GWB. I guess 3000 dead wasn't enough to break their allegiance to Clinton.
Sad but true....the media has applauded 30 millions BABIES being killed....3000 adults doesn't faze them.
true- but we know how tne MSM vote. we just keep winning. this one will cause big pain for someone. it crosses party lines. if this plays out those who try to defend the blunder will be on the margins.
on a flight from Prague
Gee, PRAGUE? Must be some coinkydink eh.
Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the now-disbanded commission, said Tuesday that members of the panel could issue a statement by the end of the week after reviewing claims that officials had identified ringleader Mohamed Atta and three other hijackers.
"The 9/11 commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohamed Atta or of his cell," said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "Had we learned of it, obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation."
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Friday
AP) The leaders of the 9/11 commission late Friday disputed a congressman's criticism that the panel did not adequately investigate a claim that four hijackers were identified as al Qaeda members more than a year before the attacks.
In a joint statement, former commission chairman Thomas Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton said a military official who made the claim had no documentation to back it up. And they said only 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta was identified to them and not three additional hijackers as claimed by Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees.
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