Now That’s Chutzpah!

It takes great balls of fire to reveal your kooky theories about Sept. 11 just before being sworn in as chaplain to New York’s Bravest:

An imam slated to be sworn in today as the second Muslim chaplain in Fire Department history, instead resigned after making controversial remarks on the Sept. 11 attacks in an interview with Newsday.

. . .

In a telephone interview Thursday, Habib, 30, a native of Guyana who studied Islam in Saudi Arabia, said he questioned whether 19 hijackers were responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and suggested a broader conspiracy may have brought down the Twin Towers and killed more than 2,700 people.

He said he doubted the United States government’s official story blaming 19 hijackers associated with al-Quaida and Osama bin Laden.

“I, as an individual, don’t know who did the attacks,” said Habib, 30, a soft-spoken man who immigrated to New York in July 2000 after spending six years in Saudi Arabia getting a degree in Islamic theology and law. “There are so many conflicting reports about it. I don’t believe it was 19 … hijackers who did those attacks.”

Asked to elaborate on his reasons for doubting that story, he talked about video and news reports widely disseminated in the Muslim community.

“I’ve heard professionals say that nowhere ever in history did a steel building come down with fire alone,” he said. “It takes two or three weeks to demolish a building like that. But it was pulled down in a couple of hours. Was it 19 hijackers who brought it down, or was it a conspiracy?”

Questioned about who he believed was responsible for the attacks, Habib said he didn’t know. He said, however, that he did not expect to raise his doubts with rank-and-file firefighters — nor did he share them two weeks ago when he participated in several Sept. 11 memorials on behalf of the Fire Department.