History might have been different!

...HOW THE ATTACK ON 9/11 MIGHT HAVE BEEN DISRUPTED!

In simple terms...Mohammed Atta, the so called “leader” in the planning and subsequent fulfillment of the tragedy was stopped for speeding a few weeks earlier.  It happened on Pine Island road near my own large apartment complex.

Now...he probably was stopped by a Broward County Sheriff Officer as they have jurisdiction here.

Now some “what if’s:

Did he have a Florida drivers license?  Probably not as he wasn’t in the country for a long time.  He likely was using some kind of international license that permits him to drive here?  If he DID have a Florida license what address was on it and did that address match the address for the tags on his car?

What was his car?  Was it a rental...a lease?  Did it have legal tags? At what address was the tag located?

And last and certainly not least...the officer might have asked:

“what is your business here in Florida?”

Now...this COULD...I emphasize COULD have tripped Atta up. 

First of all...he was on an extremely important and sensitive mission as we now know.  He was going to be the leader of a group of men who would hijack commercial jetliners and fly them into the Twin Towers.

He MUST have been nervous as hell being stopped just days before the attack by a lowly Sheriff’s officer.

One slip of the tongue (in a language not his own) and the whole thing could have gone awry.

Suppose the officer became suspicious because the drivers license and the tags didn’t match and the address might have been some other address than his Coral Springs address where he lived.  Reports later said there were several different addresses in the area where his men were housed and where the attack planning also took place.

All these points and especially the last one could have led to a postponement or perhaps even a cancelation of the horrendous attack on 9/11.

Can we blame the officer for not checking into Atta more?  I’ll leave that up do you.  I’ve never seen an interview with that officer to know how he felt at the time talking to Atta...or feels now. (probably pretty bad!)

Just some speculation as we pass another anniversary of 9/11.

stanmajor@aol.com