Face to Face With a Terrorist - Worker Recalls Atta Seeking Funds Before 9/11 (Cropduster!)

ABC News ^ | June 6, 2002

[Shermy]

What do you think of this one? How does ABC know what Zabadayah said?

[Mitchell]

Ping.

[Irene Adler]

After this guy talked about slashing the USDA official's throat and stealing money from her safe and also destroying government buildings, threw money at her in an attempt to purchase an arial photo of Wash. DC she didn't want to sell, plus acted generally scary and spooky, she didn't even let ANYBODY know about this attempt by a non-citizen to get loan money from the US govt. to finance the purchase of an airplane with a huge "chemical tank"?

Maybe this is normal behavior for people trying to get USDA loans.

[abner]

I thought this was an Onion piece. Unbelievable. How could she not remember this man?

[Shermy]

I have strong suspicions about this story, including adding of info for self-importance reasons. Atta admitted he was in Al Qaeda? What?

Also want to know the spin about "cropdusters" as bombs, rather than spreading anthrax or pesticides converted into crude nerve agents. Moussaoui was caught with wind pattern info. Many showed interest in cropdusters close to 9/11. Want to know the source of this Zabadiyah speculation. Could be true. But interests served by deflecting the threat would be the various industries related to agricultre.

[The Old Hoosier]

You know, I have a feeling she's making up more than a small bit of this story. I can't imagine Atta would be so incompetent.

[kristinn]

We're doomed. This could be a Saturday Night Live skit, except that it's our government at work.

[VOA]

...she didn't even let ANYBODY know about this attempt by a non-citizen to get loan
money from the US govt. to finance the purchase of an airplane with a huge "chemical tank"?

I think the answer is below...she's a typical government employee.

Atta also talked about life in his country. "He mentioned al Qaeda, he mentioned
Osama bin Laden," said Bryant. "I didn't know who Osama bin Laden was …
He could have been a character on Star Wars for all I knew."

I'm pretty sure that Osama was mentioned in the news more than a few times before
9-11; what we have here is a regular governmental functionary.
Fortunately the system accidentally worked and he didn't get his loan to
build his anthrax delivery system...oops, I forgot, all that anthrax stuff is the
product of domestic right-wing nuts.

[abner]

I seriously hope she is making most of this up. If she is an average government employee, yes, we are DOOMED.

[VOA]

I have strong suspicions about this story, including adding of info for self-importance
reasons. Atta admitted he was in Al Qaeda? What?

You are being too kind to the run-of-the-mill government employee.

When I'm at the Federal Building post office in West LA, I get to see
"our servants" trudge away from their jobs-for-life.
They don't look like the brightest bulbs...

[beaversmom]

Sure makes me feel safer knowing that airport security has been federalized.

[knak]

Sounds like an incompetent crazed lunatic!

[Sender]

...she's a typical government employee

OK, Mr Atta, you're going to have to fill out federal form Q1099-A-050, equipping a medium-size aircraft with a bomb, and form Q1101-C-017, permit for destruction of building over 50 stories. Oh, and I'll need your credit references and a five dollar application fee. You can just stop with the staring and the throat-slashing, sir, I'm a government employee. You can wait the six months for processing like everybody else. Sign here. Who is Allen Queda? Oh, I see.

[dts32041]

Since I haven't seen the interview all I can surmise, is she is a product of 16 years of government PC culture with a minor in sensitivity changing.

[piasa]

If this isn't embellished, then the woman needs to get a refund on her education. She was overcharged.

[Alouette]

Bryant hopes her story will serve as a warning to all Americans.

Who does she want to play her in the movie?

[BlackVeil]

I too found this whole story reeks of invention. Like the bit: "He said he had just arrived in the United States from Afghanistan ... " That is what many uninformed people believe - that the hijackers were Afghani or had visited that country. But they were from elsewhere.

[The Great Satan]

Bryant never thought to report her strange encounter, because she thought she was just helping a new immigrant learn about the country.

"I felt that he was trying to make the cultural leap from the country that he came from, with all the violence, as compared to the United States," she says. "I was attempting, in every manner I could, to help him make his relocation into our country as easy for him as I could make it."

Well, isn't that special?

[ValerieUSA]

As an American citizen can I fire her?