Iranian president: 9/11 was a U.S. conspiracy

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a highly provocative U.N. speech Thursday suggesting that elements within the U.S. government may have orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to justify military aggression on behalf of Israel in the region.

The remarks triggered an immediate walkout by the U.S. delegation and its allies, who accused the Iranian leader of engaging in an anti-Semitic rant.



"Rather than representing the aspirations and goodwill of the Iranian people, Mr. Ahmadinejad has yet again chosen to spout vile conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic slurs that are as abhorrent and delusional as they are predictable," said Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations.



Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly, the Iranian leader portrayed the U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq as disproportionate responses to the 9/11 attacks. "It was said that some three thousand people were killed on the 11 September for which we are all very saddened," he said. "Yet, up until now, in Afghanistan and Iraq hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, millions wounded and displaced and the conflict is still going on, and expanding."



Ahmadinejad went on to suggest that the identity of the perpetrators remains an open question, and claimed that that there are three prevailing viewpoints on the matter that should be the subject of a U.N. fact-finding mission.



The U.S. government view, he said, is "that a very powerful and complex terrorist group, able to successfully cross all layers of the American intelligence and security, carried out the attack."



A second theory, which he claimed is held by the majority of Americans, is "that some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grip on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime."

A final theory holds that the attack was "carried out by a terrorist group but the American government supported and took advantage of the situation," he said. "Apparently, this viewpoint has fewer proponents."



In the meantime, Ahmadinejad announced he would hold a conference in Iran next year to study "terrorism and the means to confront it. I invited officials, scholars, thinkers researchers and research institutions of all countries to attend."