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'It's been a loss of a lifetime' (Atta hotel lady tested for anthrax)
Prtland Press Herald ^ | 9/11/03 | Josie Huang

Posted on 09/11/2003 6:43 PM PDT by Badabing Badaboom

'It's been a loss of a lifetime' Josie Huang, Portland (Maine) Press Herald, Tuesday, September 9, 2003, page 1 Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

Laura R. Wale was general manager of this Comfort Inn in South Portland where two terrorists stayed before they flew an airliner into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Since then she has lost her job and suffered an emotional breakdown.

Terrorists' stop in Portland still mystifies: FBI agents continue to follow up leads that could explain why the pair drove here from Boston, then flew back.

Laura Wale says her life was good. Maybe too good.

As general manager of the Comfort Inn in South Portland, she was a popular supervisor and savvy moneymaker for the hotel chain. She bought a three-bedroom house in Portland on her $70,000-plus annual salary and took regular trips to Las Vegas with her partner.

Then on Sept. 10, 2001, at 5:43 p.m., terrorist mastermind Mohamed Atta and a companion, Abdulaziz Alomari, checked into the hotel she managed. Twelve hours later, they left for the Portland International Jetport to strike the World Trade Center and change the world.

Two years after the attack, Wale has become one of the terrorists' most unlikely victims. She never met Atta or Alomari. But she believes her connection to 9/11 and the stress of dealing with federal investigators, the national media and her company sent her life into a tailspin.

In the past two years she has gone from corporate darling to persona non grata, banned from the hotel she ran for about seven years for allegedly threatening to hurt an employee.

Many people learned to cope after crossing paths with the terrorists at flight schools, universities and stores. But Wale's mental health deteriorated. Her behavior became so erratic that she eventually checked into a psychiatric unit during a visit to the Washington, D.C., area last fall.

"I mean, it's been a loss of a lifetime," Wale said, smoking a cigarette as she sat on a Portland park bench on a recent afternoon. "My life up until now is over as I know it."

Unemployed for almost a year, Wale said the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks would be the first time she wasn't "under someone's thumb" and could talk freely about her experiences.

"Nobody has really told the story about what it was like to be on the inside," said Wale, a gravelly-voiced woman of 38, with a thin, determined mouth. "That's the story and there's a whole lot of people like me who don't know what to do."

Wale gamely answers most questions, telling the story of her meltdown with bitterness and biting humor.

"For a long time, a lot of people thought I felt responsible. . . . What could I have done?" she said. "But when you're a hotel (general manager) . . . you're accountable for that property 24-7. . . . And it happened at that hotel. That's where it all started out."

At turns, she sounds impatient and agitated. Her story veers off into conspiracy theories.

How did government agents know to storm the Comfort Inn only hours after the Twin Towers fell? Why did the FBI release surveillance video of Atta and Alomari at various locations in South Portland, but not the lobby of the Comfort Inn?

What, she wonders, is on that tape?

A fastidious record-keeper, she produces documentation of her falling out with the Silver Spring, Md.-based Sunburst Hospitality Corp., which runs the Comfort Inn hotel chain, including a photocopy of the criminal trespass notice.

Sunburst's executive vice president and chief operating officer, Kevin Hanley, refused to comment for this story.

But in a Sept. 25, 2001, letter he commended Wale and her staff for their "unparalleled professionalism" after Sept. 11. He reserved special praise for Wale, passing on a compliment from an FBI agent.

"(The agent) indicated that the FBI would not have been able to perform its duties effectively without the total support and cooperation from you and your staff," Hanley wrote. "As he said, 'No' is not in Laura's vocabulary."

Wale entered the hospitality industry as an 18-year-old in Toledo, Ohio, and developed a reputation as a trouble-shooter and able leader. She climbed up the ranks and after a successful stint in Phoenix, was transferred to the Comfort Inn in South Portland in 1995.

"When she came, it was like a breath of fresh air," said Lynda Eaton, who worked at the South Portland hotel. "It just felt like she knew what she was doing."

Eaton said Wale was known for being fair-minded and fun. She threw regular pizza parties to show her appreciation for employees and treated them to buffet dinners whenever the hotel won an award for excellence.

Her staff thought she could handle anything - even a hotel stay by two of the most notorious Sept. 11 terrorists.

"She dealt with it by herself," Eaton said. "Nobody came up from corporate. It was a little too much but she was a very strong woman. I always admired that of her."

Wale felt just as confident about her abilities. After watching the "Today" show and learning that American Airlines Flight 11 had crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:45 a.m., Wale rushed to work, prepared to go into crisis mode. She arrived just in time to see United Airlines Flight 175 crash into the south tower at 9:03 a.m.

Because flights were halted, she thought, "I'm going to have guests who can't get out. Guests who can't get in. Phone service is going to be interrupted. The whole shooting match is going to go down."

She put all her managers on 24-hour call. After she went home for the day, around 7 p.m., she got a phone call from the hotel. An FBI agent was on the other line.

"Your hotel has had direct involvement in 9/11. We need you to come in," the agent told her, according to Wale. Wale turned to her partner, Dee Franks, and said: "Our world just changed. Our world just changed."

Wale spent the next 48 hours at the hotel, bringing in crisis counselors for her staff, signing evidence forms, retrieving the surveillance video, running names, making faxes - whatever the FBI wanted.

"The Dumpster needed to be moved," she said. "The picture of (Atta's) shirt on the FBI Web site? They pulled that out of our Dumpster at the Comfort Inn."

Wale said little help came from corporate headquarters, other than a script she was to repeat to reporters neither confirming nor denying the investigation.

After more than 574 calls from the media in the first two weeks after the terrorist attacks - everybody, Wale said, from the Washington Post's Bob Woodward to the National Enquirer had contacted her - she began referring reporters to the company.

The constant pressure was beginning to wear her down.

Wale said it upset her that she needed to be tested for anthrax because she had been one of the first people to enter the terrorists' hotel room after the attacks.

But perhaps the biggest blow came when she discovered on Sept. 26 that the federal government had cited her in court records in its case against the alleged 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui. As the Comfort Inn's general manager, she was the custodian of hotel records being used as government exhibits.

"What does anything they acquire from my hotel on 9/11 have to do with him or (what do) I have to do with it?" she asked.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, where Moussaoui is facing trial for conspiracy to murder, would not comment on the case.

In the ensuing months, Wale says she became depressed and had trouble sleeping. Medication did little to help her mood and she began to distance herself from friends and family. Long after the FBI and reporters left her hotel, she became fixated on understanding what happened on Sept. 11, and pulled all-nighters conducting research on the Internet.

She also made sure to keep photocopies of Atta's hotel receipt and an inventory of items the FBI took out of his hotel room.

On an August 2002 trip to Las Vegas to see Cher in concert, Franks, Wale's partner of nine years, realized that something was undeniably wrong.

"The emotional abandonment made me think, what's wrong with her, what's wrong with me," Franks said. "The walls came up high, the walls came up higher."

Wale's workplace relationships also became increasingly strained. Eaton, the hotel's assistant executive housekeeper, quit last September, a year after the attacks. Wale had become unbearably demanding, Eaton said, and picked on her relentlessly.

Wale herself knew something wasn't "quite right" and flew to Maryland last November to share her concerns with hotel executives.

That's when Wale suffered a nervous breakdown and checked herself into Potomac Ridge Behavioral Health Adventist Healthcare in Rockville, Md., on Nov. 11, said Ralph Tucker, her workers' compensation lawyer and former head of the state Workers' Compensation Commis- sion.

Wale had been stopped for speeding, according to Tucker and hospital reports, and told police that she had been trying to get away from government agents.

She had initially stopped as demanded by police, but had moved her car to avoid blocking a bus stop, Tucker said.

Police charged Wale with eluding arrest and told her to voluntarily enter a psychiatric ward. After an 11-day stay, Wale emerged with a diagnosis that included depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - and no job.

Sunburst had fired Wale the same day she entered Potomac Ridge, saying that she had threatened an employee with bodily harm in November and bothered others with phone calls at work and at home.

Tucker said that burnout caused the nervous breakdown and Sunburst should rehire Wale. At the very least, Tucker said, the company could give her workers' compensation benefits. Money has dried up for Wale and forced her to sell her house.

The state is expected to schedule a mediation session between Wale and Sunburst sometime soon. In the meantime, she is still looking for work in the hospitality industry. Maine hotels, she said, have labeled her the "9/11 G.M." so she has begun searching outside the state, particularly in the D.C. area.

"It is who I am," she said. "I've been doing it for the last 20 years and I'm damn good at it."

Wale is working on a book on her post-Sept. 11 experiences while trying to regain a semblance of her old life with the help of a therapist, her friends and family. She said she has no use for medication. The anti-depressants she took for about a year after Sept. 11 may have exacerbated her stress, she said.

"It's a blessing . . . that I've been able to get it back together," Wale said. "I lost my lifetime prior to Sept. 11. That person is completely gone and changed now. The only way I can look at it positively now, is that I got through it."

Occasionally, she talks to her old friend and employee, Eaton, who now manages a clothing store in South Portland. They meet for coffee and discuss anything but the hotel, or Sept. 11.

Wale looks good, Eaton said. She's lost weight and dresses as smartly as she did at the Comfort Inn. She can be as funny as ever.

But it's apparent to Eaton that Wale's familiar spark is missing and she always walks away from their meetings feeling a sense of loss.

"I still try to think of her and see her in my own eyes: a strong, feisty, in-charge person at the hotel," Eaton said. "That everything just crumbled, it saddens me."

Josie Huang can be contacted at 791-6364 or at: jhuang@pressherald.com
TOPICS: Anthrax Scare; US: Maine; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 2NDANNIVERSARY; 911; 911HIJACKERS; ALOMARI; ATTA; BIOTERRORISM; COMFORTINN; HOTEL; MAINE; TERRORISM; WMD Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
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So when did she get tested for anthrax? The day after 9/11, or the middle of October?

1 posted on 09/11/2003 6:43 PM PDT by Badabing Badaboom
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To: TopQuark; Shermy; mrustow; HitmanNY; Allan; TexKat; pokerbuddy0; Fred Mertz; Mitchell; Wallaby; ...

ping

2 posted on 09/11/2003 6:44 PM PDT by Badabing Badaboom (http://anthrax2001.blogspot.com)
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To: Badabing Badaboom

Some information here that hasn't been reported before, not only the anthrax but the existence of the lobby videotape of Atta and Alomari.

3 posted on 09/11/2003 6:50 PM PDT by denydenydeny
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To: denydenydeny

Contrary to popular belief, the FBI spent September and October fanatically trying to find any link between the 9/11 hijackers and the anthrax attacks (and, of course, turned up nothing.)

So it's hardly breaking news or interesting that she was tested for anthrax; they tested all over the place, anywhere the hijackers had been.

4 posted on 09/11/2003 6:52 PM PDT by John H K
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To: denydenydeny

I emailed the reporter to ask her if she knows exactly when the anthrax test was made. It would help perhaps if a few more peole emailed her - that way she might get the message it's important.
jhuang@pressherald.com

5 posted on 09/11/2003 6:53 PM PDT by Badabing Badaboom (http://anthrax2001.blogspot.com)
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To: Badabing Badaboom

Tragic story, but I just don't quite get it!

6 posted on 09/11/2003 6:54 PM PDT by ladyinred (The left have blood on their hands.)
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To: John H K

Yhey were looking for links to anthrax in September? Now that would be interesting!

7 posted on 09/11/2003 6:54 PM PDT by Badabing Badaboom (http://anthrax2001.blogspot.com)
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To: John H K

Err, meant to say October and November, of course.

8 posted on 09/11/2003 6:55 PM PDT by John H K
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To: John H K

how do you know they turned up nothing?

9 posted on 09/11/2003 6:55 PM PDT by oceanview
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To: John H K

Well that's what we're trying to ascertain here - WHEN she got tested. If it was October it's only mildly interesting.

10 posted on 09/11/2003 6:56 PM PDT by Badabing Badaboom (http://anthrax2001.blogspot.com)
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To: oceanview

Oh, right, I forgot, they FBI of course immediately determined the 9/11 hijackers, in league with Iraq, were responsible for the anthrax attacks, but Aschroft and Bush decided it would be a better idea, while the US was building a case for war with Iraq, to vaguely try to pin the anthrax attacks on a US government employee.

(sarcasm off).

11 posted on 09/11/2003 6:58 PM PDT by John H K
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To: John H K

In fact the scenario you give is exactly the one portrayed by Bob Woodward in "Bush at War" as being the actual events that took place.

12 posted on 09/11/2003 7:01 PM PDT by Badabing Badaboom (http://anthrax2001.blogspot.com)
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To: John H K

how do you know they turned up nothing?

do you really think that Bush could have released such information, a trial run WMD attack, in October of 2001? what do you think would have happened in this country, to the economy, if something like that was just released without any consideration for the consequences?

13 posted on 09/11/2003 7:01 PM PDT by oceanview
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To: John H K

did Hatfill do it? tell us your opinion, did Hatfill send the anthrax?

14 posted on 09/11/2003 7:02 PM PDT by oceanview
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To: Badabing Badaboom

I'm not sure I get why it is so important when she was tested.

15 posted on 09/11/2003 7:05 PM PDT by ItisaReligionofPeace ((the original))
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To: John H K

My theory is that we didn't want to find a connection because if we did, we would have had to nuked Iraq in our basically unwritten or written? policy of deterance.

16 posted on 09/11/2003 7:07 PM PDT by FreeAtlanta
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To: Badabing Badaboom

Many thanks for the post and the ping. Interesting read.

I wish I could help this poor lady.

17 posted on 09/11/2003 7:08 PM PDT by TopQuark
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To: ItisaReligionofPeace

if she was tested BEFORE the anthrax attacks took place, then that means the FBI had information that the 9/11 hijackers had access to the material, without actually seeing the mailings take place, to trigger the testing.

18 posted on 09/11/2003 7:13 PM PDT by oceanview
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To: Badabing Badaboom

Chronology from the FBI. No Comfort Inn videotape mentioned.

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/100401.htm

Monday, September 10, 2001

5:43 pm Atta and AL-OMARI checked into the Comfort Inn, 90 Maine Mall Road, South Portland, Maine.

8/9:00 pm Sometime between 8:00 pm and 9:00 pm, two Middle Eastern males were seen at Pizza Hut, 415 Maine Mall Road, South Portland, Maine, for approximately fifteen (15) minutes.

8:31 pm ATTA and AL-OMARI were photographed by a Key Bank drive-up ATM located at 445 Gorham Road, South Portland, Maine. They were driving a 2001 blue Nissan Altima rental car bearing Massachusetts license 3335VI.

8:41 pm ATTA and AL-OMARI were photographed by a Fast Green ATM located in the parking lot of UNO's restaurant, 280 Maine Mall Road, South Portland, Maine.

9:15 pm ATTA and AL-OMARI were at Jetport Gas Station, 446 Western, Avenue, South Portland, Maine. ATTA was wearing a half dark, half light colored shirt with light colored slacks.

9:22 pm ATTA was at Wal-Mart, 451 Payne Road, Scarborough, Maine, for approximately twenty minutes.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

5:33 am ATTA and AL-OMARI checked out of the Comfort Inn.

5:40 am The 2001 blue Nissan Altima rental car, bearing Massachusetts license 3335VI, entered Portland International Jetport Airport parking lot. It was parked on the first floor directly across from the airport entrance.

5:43 am ATTA and AL-OMARI checked in at US AIRWAYS counter.

5:45 am ATTA and AL-OMARI passed through airport security.

6:00 am ATTA and AL-OMARI departed on Colgan Air en route to Boston, Massachusetts.

____________________________
http://www.ci-ce-ct.com/article/showquestion.asp?faq=3&fldAuto=684
Also this NYTimes article. Why did they go to Maine rather than board at Boston???

19 posted on 09/11/2003 7:14 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: ladyinred

"Tragic story, but I just don't quite get it!"

That part about "her parnter, Dee..." tells me all I need to know.

20 posted on 09/11/2003 7:14 PM PDT by PLMerite ("Unarmed, one can only flee from Evil. But Evil isn't overcome by fleeing from it." Jeff Cooper)
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To: Shermy

so, who was on the lobby tape with them in Portland? If it were a tape of just them, what would be the big deal. For it to mean something, they it must mean that they were with someone. Who could it be?

21 posted on 09/11/2003 7:17 PM PDT by oceanview
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To: Badabing Badaboom

I emailed the reporter to ask her if she knows exactly when the anthrax test was made. It would help perhaps if a few more peole emailed her - that way she might get the message it's important.

Yes. From the chronology of the article it's unclear.

But if it's before the AMI attack, I don't think it's necessarily unusual. Right after 9/11 politicos were warning us of "asymetrical" attacks, including biologicals. Testing could be part of a mandatory protocol. Klayman contends the White House went on Cipro right after 9/11, no?

But, when did the information about Atta's compatriot's black lesion come out first???

Worth following up. Reporter should ask when, and what the lady was told were the reasons. Did it seem normal procedure?

Finally, got to admit that this lady has "issues" other than her brush with fame.

22 posted on 09/11/2003 7:21 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: Shermy

< Finally, got to admit that this lady has "issues" other than her brush with fame. >

I agree. I can't believe the number of people coming out of the woodwork since 9/11/01 who "just can't work anymore".

23 posted on 09/11/2003 7:40 PM PDT by GOP_Proud
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To: oceanview

if she was tested BEFORE the anthrax attacks took place, then that means the FBI had information that the 9/11 hijackers had access to the material, without actually seeing the mailings take place, to trigger the testing.

The anthrax scenarios started immediately after 9/11 in the media. Anthrax seemed to be the only hypothetical second-wave attack the pundits were even considering.

At the time, I felt like we were being braced for something. When weaponized anthrax turned up in Boca Raton, I knew we had been.

24 posted on 09/11/2003 7:43 PM PDT by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard
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To: Shermy

Why did they go to Maine rather than board at Boston???

Just a theory: maybe they figured there'd be less scrutiny during boarding in Maine, and less chance their carry-on would be checked for box-cutters, etc. Also, as transferring passengers in Boston they'd draw less attention during boarding. Of course there are several other possible scenarios too.

25 posted on 09/11/2003 7:45 PM PDT by Bernard Marx
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To: oceanview

how do you know they turned up nothing?

He knows everything.

26 posted on 09/11/2003 7:47 PM PDT by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard
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To: Badabing Badaboom

Many people learned to cope after crossing paths with the terrorists at flight schools, universities and stores.

What's to cope with? People need to grow some backbone.

27 posted on 09/11/2003 7:50 PM PDT by Sloth ("I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!" -- Jacobim Mugatu, 'Zoolander')
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To: oceanview

do you really think that Bush could have released such information, a trial run WMD attack, in October of 2001?

Uh, everyone already knew what was going on. I think the news may even have mentioned the anthrax attacks in passing once or twice. :-P The only question was who did it. I think pinning it on the hijackers would have brought a sense of relief.

28 posted on 09/11/2003 7:55 PM PDT by Sloth ("I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!" -- Jacobim Mugatu, 'Zoolander')
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To: oceanview; Badabing Badaboom; pokerbuddy0

so, who was on the lobby tape with them in Portland? If it were a tape of just them, what would be the big deal. For it to mean something, they it must mean that they were with someone. Who could it be?

"June 9, 2001 | The main thing Joann Van Buren says she remembers about Timothy McVeigh is the $50 bill he wanted her to break. That, and the two men who accompanied him.

One day before he tore a hole in the nation's psyche with the bomb that destroyed Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building, McVeigh, Van Buren says, pulled up to the little Subway sandwich shop where she worked in Junction City, Kansas, driving the yellow Ryder truck that would contain the bomb.

Van Buren didn't pay any particular attention to them at first. Another clerk waited on the men, but when they tried to pay for their meal with a large bill, she took notice.

"As soon as the $50 bill came up, I had to go to the safe to get the change," says Van Buren today. "And when I gave them the change and they got their sandwiches, I remember them going back over to the corner, sitting down. And when they left, I remember three people getting into the truck. There were three people at the table."

The clerks she worked with later told FBI agents that two of the men matched the descriptions of McVeigh and his cohort, Terry Nichols. The third was a shorter, dark-haired and muscular man with an olive complexion: a perfect fit for the figure destined to be known as John Doe 2.

Luckily, the Subway shop actually had a video camera recording that day's events. When Van Buren contacted the FBI, agents interviewed everyone working in the shop on April 18. And when they were done, they confiscated the video recorded that day.

And never to be seen again...

The mystery of John Doe No. 2

29 posted on 09/11/2003 7:57 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: Sloth

"I think pinning it on the hijackers would have brought a sense of relief."

Not as much as pinning it on a rogue scientist who eally cares for our safety and wanted to alert us...

30 posted on 09/11/2003 7:58 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: Sloth

such a proclamation would have demanded an immediate attack on iraq, because the next question would quikcly have been: where did they get it from? there aren't too many answers to that question. we were not prepared to attack iraq in 10/2001. or do you really thing that bush could have gone to a microphone and said: "don't sweat it, the terrorists sent some anthrax, they probably bought it at CVS, they are all dead now, nothing to see here, move on".

31 posted on 09/11/2003 8:03 PM PDT by oceanview
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To: Shermy

if indeed that hotel video showed them with a third person, a good bet is that that person is somehow connected to iraq or the saudis.

32 posted on 09/11/2003 8:05 PM PDT by oceanview
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To: Badabing Badaboom

Thanks for the heads up!

33 posted on 09/11/2003 8:14 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: oceanview

Gotcha. Definitely a tin foil hat kind of thought, but interesting nonetheless.

34 posted on 09/11/2003 8:16 PM PDT by ItisaReligionofPeace ((the original))
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To: Shermy

Why did they go to Maine rather than board at Boston???

Interesting "isolated incident" :

SEPTEMBER 14 +/-, 2001 : (ZIDI AVIATION, SAUDI PILOT HUNT, PORTLAND MAINE) : "We had heard 3 or 4 days afterward (9/11) that there was a suspicious plane and that the FBI was watching it," Jeffrey Monroe, Portland's transportation director, said Wednesday. "The word was if anybody approached the plane or whatever, then that needs to be conveyed to the FBI." The FBI is looking for Alzeedi, a pilot who owns Zidi Aviation in Delaware, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, bought two Tampico TB-9 airplanes in Nashville, Tenn., in August.Alzeedi told the Moroccan newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that he flew one of the planes to Portland and left it there because it needed additional fuel tanks. He then left the country. http://www.portland.com/news/attack/011018saudiplane.shtml
* A London-based Arabic-language newspaper, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, reported Tuesday that it had interviewed Alzeedi by telephone from Morocco, and that Alzeedi expressed amazement at the investigation, saying he had already answered investigators' questions. The Associated Press called a Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, phone number listed on the Zidi Aviation Web site, but no one answered Thursday. http://www.airdisaster.com/news/1001/19/news2.shtml

35 posted on 09/11/2003 8:47 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: Shermy

check this out, too- I don't know what they mean by "northeast" but maybe this guy was in Portland, too:

SEPTEMBER 10, 2001 : (Muslim cleric Maotaz Al-Hallak leaves the northeastern US for Texas) Al-Hallak had been questioned by prosecutors in the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. After 9/11, authorities would try to find him again, believing he left the US northeast for Texas, according to a later AP report.- "More arrests coming, U.S. says : So far, 25 people arrested for immigration violations are being questioned by federal investigators in connection with Tuesday's attacks," © St. Petersburg Times, published September 16, 2001 - Information from Cox News Service, Associated Press, Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune was used in this report. cache , http://www.sptimes.com/News/091601/Worldandnation/More_arrests_coming__.shtml. , current page , http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:HBTXAfMKTmsC:www.sptimes.com/News/091601/Worldandnation/More_arrests_coming__.shtml+%22Mohammed+Jaweed+Azmath+%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

36 posted on 09/11/2003 8:51 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: Bernard Marx

Very plausible.

37 posted on 09/11/2003 8:54 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: Bernard Marx

maybe they figured there'd be less scrutiny during boarding in Maine

That was my thought as well. Before Sept. 11, I was always searched pretty thoroughly at O'Hare in Chicago. But when I flew out of Madison, WI's airport, security was a joke. One time, I went with my brother and nephew to watch the fighter jets take off. (Madison shares its airport with a fighter wing.) My nephew was 3 years old and in a stroller that would have been a very tight fight through the metal detector. The nice, old man running the metal detector said, "Aw, that's okay. Just bring it around." Nevermind that there were bags underneath it.

38 posted on 09/11/2003 9:01 PM PDT by July 4th
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To: Bernard Marx

Definitely could be.

39 posted on 09/11/2003 9:35 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: GOP_Proud; Shermy

Please understand thast this type of personality, in charge of a property 24/7, is a highly responsible, detail oriented, service oriented personality. Their sense of pride and worth directly is translated into the property they run, and becomes a reflection of them.

For their "baby" or property to be involved in this terrible event, makes them question what could they have done so that this event didn't visit upon them. The truth is , nothing. But to them, they take on the responsibility that this happened on their watch on their property.

This manager had a sterling record up to then. The added pressure of dealing with the FBI and other gov't officvials, perhaps to the point of even being under suspicion, turned this person's worldview of herself upside down. Even her corporate masters, either through negligence or through indifference, didn't realize the stress this person was put under.

Until you have personally been responsible for a staffed property 24/7 with all that entails, you really have no idea of the responsibilities involved just under normal circumstances. She had even more to deal with, and no one realized what it was doing to her.

I think she also may have become "damaged goods" within her own corporation because of the notoriety of what took place on her property, in spite of everyone saying what a great job she did in the aftermath.. Even her sterling response wasn't enough to take that stigma away. She probably felt that amongst her professional kin, and just wasn't equipped to properly deal with it.

Everyone reacts differently to the stress in this kind of situation. I don't fault her in any way. I hope she can get back on track.

40 posted on 09/11/2003 9:59 PM PDT by exit82 (Constitution?--I got your Constitution right here!--T. Daschle)
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To: Shermy

Hmmm. Northeast appears to be Laurel, Maryland. Wonder if al Hallack was big on tupperware minnow traps?

41 posted on 09/11/2003 11:37 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: John H K

John apparently thinks turning up anthrax production documents using a spraydryer on Khalid Mohammed's laptop is nothing -- or his statement under interrogation about Yazid Sufaat's work on anthrax R&D being related to Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries into cropdusters. Sufaat was at the January 2000 meeting with the two pilots and allegedly had wired Zacarias $35,000.

42 posted on 09/12/2003 3:26 AM PDT by pokerbuddy0
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To: exit82

you are right.

My first thought is that she was also menopausal and going crazy, and that the 911 stuff put her over the edge.

and she said she had "no use for medicine" after "anti depressants" made her anxiety worse.

Mild anti depressants don't make "normal" people more nervous. If a simple dosage doesn't work, then you use second line medication and/or add a tranquillizer, and refer to a psychiatrist. You see, a lot of "normal" people are mildly bipolar, and anti depressants make them worse/nervous. And a lot of people who have a history of substance abuse (especially cocaine/crank/meth) don't respond to anti depressants for depression/panic attack...

43 posted on 09/12/2003 4:57 AM PDT by LadyDoc
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To: LadyDoc

My first thought.....She was already on the edge for whatever reason. 38 is a little early to be that menopausal.. but she was looking for a reason to trigger...she sounded too together according to witnesses..and boom she got her excuse and went for it. I do not think that 2 terroist staying at your place of business is cause to go over the edge. However, may those *astards roast in hell.

44 posted on 09/12/2003 5:28 AM PDT by DooDahhhh
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To: Shermy; rubbertramp; Fred Mertz; oceanview; Wallaby; hotshot

What, she wonders, is on that tape?

interesting, isn't it, how these pesky little video tapes keep disappearing from crime scene investigations.

all the WH video tapes of VWF's last day on earth (God bless sharlot donovan).
all the surveillance tapes at murrah.
the subway video of timmy mc & nichols w/ JD2
the portland hotel video of atta with ______?

45 posted on 09/12/2003 6:53 AM PDT by thinden
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To: LadyDoc

Good point about the bipolar/medication info. Thirty eight sounds young to be menopausal--I thought that was more for women in their late fortiesto early fifties. Do you see many women who are menopausal or pre-menopausal in their late thirties?

I know on any given night on FreeRepublic I can have tremendous mood swings!;)

46 posted on 09/12/2003 1:25 PM PDT by exit82 (Constitution?--I got your Constitution right here!--T. Daschle)
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To: John H K

The FBI did not spend any of September 2001 trying to link the terrorists and the anthrax attacks. Maybe they looked into October, but not more than a few days in September.

In the end they opted to rely exclusively on their laymen's knowledge of how the postal system works and decided the hijackers simply could not have mailed the anthrax letters.

Some of the extreme leftwing people the former Postmaster General, Bill Henderson had hired at the request of equally leftwing people on the USPS Board of Governors, were very persuasive in convincing the current PMG, Jack Potter, into going along with them and their friend Barbara Hatch Rosenburg in blaming Dr. Hatfill.

Without pressure from the PMG, the anthrax attack investigation is going nowhere. Creative approaches need to be used, and every possiblility examined. That's simply not happening.

47 posted on 09/13/2003 5:30 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah; Shermy

Terror Suspect alert after a sighting in Maine - El Shukrijumah

48 posted on 09/13/2003 10:35 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: genefromjersey

>>>>Wale said it upset her that she needed to be tested for anthrax because she had been one of the first people to enter the terrorists' hotel room after the attacks.

I think she is personally depressed and delusional; but ping anyway.

49 posted on 09/13/2003 10:49 PM PDT by Calpernia (Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does.)
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To: Badabing Badaboom; Shermy; genefromjersey

If she was general manager, is it unusual that she was one of the first people to enter the terrorists' hotel room after the attacks? Doesn't housekeeping normally enter rooms? Why the General Manager?

50 posted on 09/13/2003 11:00 PM PDT by Calpernia (Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does.)
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