Obama: Ahmadinejad Remarks Blaming U.S. for 9/11 Attacks "Hateful"
Updated 1:13 p.m. Eastern Time
President Obama said in an interview today that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's suggestion at the United Nations yesterday that Americans were responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was "hateful."
"Well, it was offensive. It was hateful," Mr. Obama said during an interview with BBC Persian, from which an excerpt was released by the White House. "And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable."
He continued: "And it stands in contrast with the response of the Iranian people when 9/11 happened, when there were candlelight vigils and I think a natural sense of shared humanity and sympathy was expressed within Iran. And it just shows once again sort of the difference between how the Iranian leadership and this regime operates and how I think the vast majority of the Iranian people who are respectful and thoughtful think about these issues."
Achmadinejad said there are three theories about the Sept. 11 attacks, one of which is that "some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime."
"The majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view," he added, falsely.
The Iranian president also offered the theory that the terrorist attacks were the work of "a terrorist group but the American government supported and took advantage of the situation."
The American delegation walked out when Ahmadinejad made the comments to the United Nations General Assembly. Representatives from 27 European countries also left the room.
Mr. Obama returned to Ahmadinejad's comments later in the interview.
"...for Ahmadinejad to come to somebody else's country and then to suggest somehow that the worst tragedy that's been experienced here, a attack that killed 3,000 people, was somehow the responsibility of the government of that country, is something that defies not just common sense but basic sense -- basic senses of decency that aren't unique to any particular country -- they're common to the entire world," he said.
