[b]If only she had known[/b]
[url=http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=132&xlc=770749&xld=132]San Antonio Express-News[/url]
Web Posted : 07/29/2002 12:00 AM
Johnell Bryant still wonders, "What if?"
The Department of Agriculture employee had an encounter with Mohammed Atta that, in hindsight, could have been significant.
As the New York Times reported recently, the Sept. 11 conspiracy leader approached Bryant 15 months before the World Trade Center attack to ask about a $650,000 government loan to buy a twin-engine crop duster.
He also tried to buy an aerial photograph of Washington, D.C., that hung on her wall and mentioned that the Dallas Cowboys stadium had a hole in its roof.
Turned down, Atta "became agitated ... and asked her what was to prevent him from slitting her throat and stealing money from the safe behind the desk in her office," she said. The safe contained no money and she was a martial arts expert, she replied.
Al-Qaida could use someone with her skills, he told her, and someone named Osama bin Laden would someday be known as "the world's greatest leader."
Bryant says she still hasn't forgiven herself for not alerting someone on that spring day. But in that vastly more innocent world, her call likely would not have attracted the attention it would today.