Had you driven into the parking lot of a certain 7-Eleven in suburban Virginia at about 1 PM on Sept. 11 of this year — which this writer did — you would have seen 11 men standing, sitting or sleeping on the concrete there and on a nearby sidewalk.

This is essentially the same scene you would have encountered there 25 years ago in the weeks leading up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This parking lot, as this column has noted before, witnessed a scene that was a prelude to the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77. That is the plane that Hani Hanjour and four other al Qaeda terrorists hijacked on 9/11 and that Hanjour flew into the Pentagon, killing 184 people.

On Aug. 1, 2001, Hanjour drove into the parking lot of this 7-Eleven. One of the men standing there that day was Luis A. Martinez-Flores, an illegal alien from El Salvador. In December 2001, this man would plead guilty to "identification document fraud."

In making his plea agreement, Martinez-Flores agreed to a "statement of facts" in his case, which he confirmed was "accurate in every respect. ... (H)ad the matter proceeded to trial, the United States would have proved those facts beyond a reasonable doubt."

"At all times material to this case, the defendant was a citizen and national of El Salvador living in the United States unlawfully," said this statement of facts submitted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

It then explained that in order to obtain a Virginia driver's license or identification card, an applicant needed "one official or business document as proof of Virginia residence." If an applicant for a Virginia ID did not have this........

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