Exclusive: Ahmadinejad denies al Qaeda’s 9/11 attack on America

April 8, 2008, 3:35 PM (GMT+02:00)

In his most provocative anti-US speech to date, Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raised doubts about whether al Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001 attack on New York actually took place. He was addressing Iran's Nuclear Technology day, April 8, DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report. He went on to ask why the US had never released the names of the thousands of dead in the Trade Center attacks and how the most advanced security, intelligence and tracking devices in the world had failed to detect the hijackers' planes before they struck the two New York towers.

Ahmadinejad is famous also for denying the Nazi Holocaust.

Announcing earlier that Iran had begun installing 6,000 new advanced (P2) centrifuges for uranium enrichment at Natanz, the Iranian president claimed his country's nuclear program had passed the point of no-return technologically and politically.

America is disintegrating politically, militarily and economically, according to Ahmadinejad, who boasted that Iran's nuclear achievement is a turning-point in history that will change the international order prevailing since World War II.

He asked why everyone jumps on Iran's nuclear program when "a band of international pirates has stores crammed with nuclear bombs."

DEBKAfile adds: By going full steam ahead with uranium enrichment, Iran is flouting three UN Security Council resolutions and standing fast against threats, sanctions and incentives offered by the West to halt a process capable of producing nuclear weapons.

Instead, Tehran is installing a new generation of advanced P2 centrifuges to replace the older P-1 machines and accelerate enrichment. He claims they are five times cheaper than the commercial machines.

The five Security Council members and Germany meet later this month for their umpteenth discussion on Iran's nuclear activities. However, aside from "sweetening" their incentives package and tighter sanctions, they have run out of ideas for curbing Iran's rapidly-advancing nuclear plans.