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thedrifter
09-01-07, 09:04 AM
Mom defends reaction to Iraqi passengers

Flight delayed after she feared 7 were terrorists
By Debbi Farr Baker and Alex Roth
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

September 1, 2007

She was simply “protecting my tiny little family,” she insisted, adding that “all I could think of was 9/11.”

But yesterday, Leigh Robbins offered an apology to seven Iraqi men who were passengers on a plane scheduled to fly from San Diego to Chicago on Tuesday night. Robbins was also on the plane but was so terrified the men might be terrorists that she demanded to get off, causing a delay that prompted the airline to postpone the flight until the next morning.

The Iraqis, as it turned out, were consultants working with Marines at Camp Pendleton. They say they were humiliated when airport security, reacting to Robbins' concerns, took them aside and questioned them. They have hired a lawyer.

“I know they're upset, and they have every right to be,” said Robbins, 35, a Richmond, Va., homemaker. She said she was traveling with her two young sons that night and decided to err on the side of caution.

“How can you overreact when it's your children?” she said.

American Airlines Flight 590, with 126 passengers on board, had been scheduled to depart Lindbergh Field at 11 p.m. Tuesday. In an interview yesterday, Robbins said she was sitting in the back of the plane with her children, awaiting the departure from the gate, when one of the Iraqis walked by to use the restroom.

She heard him “clunking around” inside the bathroom. When he came out, he had a suspicious look on his face, she said.

“He looked so mean, the way he was looking at everyone,” Robbins said. “It was very frightening, like something out of a movie.”

Robbins gathered up her sons, ages 9 and 4, and demanded to be let off the plane. The crew complied with her request, but the resulting delay meant the plane couldn't take off by Lindbergh Field's 11:30 p.m. curfew. The airline was forced to postpone the departure until 10:15 a.m. the next day.

Meanwhile, airport security officers questioned the seven Iraqis and determined that they posed no threat.

One of the men, David Al Watan, 30, of Dearborn, Mich., said the experience was mortifying because they were singled out for questioning based on their appearance.

He and the other Iraqis are employed by an Alaska-based defense contractor that works with the U.S. military. Watan, who fled Iraq in 1991 and said his mother was killed by Saddam Hussein's regime, wants an apology from American Airlines.

“While they sit in their air conditioning, I was out in the desert helping to save Marines' lives,” Watan said. “I am an American. I love this country. I would die for it.”

Lawrence Garcia, a lawyer for six of the Iraqis, accused the airline of acting improperly by questioning the men.

“They can't just assume someone has a bomb strapped to them just because they are Arabic,” Garcia said.

An American Airlines spokesman didn't return several phone calls requesting comment yesterday.

Robbins hasn't been able to reach the seven Iraqis to apologize personally. She feels terrible about the whole thing, she said.

“I'm very sorry, but I'd do anything to protect my kids,” she said. “If people want to put me down, that's their right.”

Debbi Baker: (619) 293-1710; debbi.baker@uniontrib.com

Ellie