NEWS: Imam resigns as new FDNY chaplain

Imam Intikab Habib was to be sworn in as the FDNY Chaplain today but has resigned after remarks he made when pressed by Newsday in an interview regarding 9/11 were deemed to be controversial. He feels that it would have taken more than the two planes and the fire from them alone to demolish the steel buildings in the time period it took. He also questions if there were only the 19 hijackers involved or if there was a larger conspiracy there.



It seems he is saying what so many others are saying in regards to the speed the buildings came down. From reading the article I don't think he is saying anything different than a lot of us feel. It doesn't diminish the scope of what happened or lessen the loss of lives that day to feel as he does. He has done his job well enough to be offered this position and has not let his personal belief effect his job performance. I feel that the FDNY will have lost a good chaplin because of this.

I was just reading this on Yahoo news, I couldn't believe it....

Great piece of work for the media.

Anyone else notice it is;
"Muclim, Imam, Cleric, etc".

Instead of;
"FDNY Chaplain".

The bigots, will just argue he is covering up for his friends because I am sure while over in Saudi Arabia he was talking with the Bin Laden family and all. :|

Nice find though, however I doubt it'll change much. How many people that were there said they had seen bombs? [Firefighters] And they have already been sidelined...one day maybe the truth will come out.

I guess I don't really see it as bigotry, more as an attention-grabbing headline.

He should have stepped down, IMO because if you can't be a team player, maybe you shouldn't be on the team. He's entitiled to his remarks as a private person, but once he donned the chaplains hat, he becomes a spokesman for FDNY.

Originally posted by Odium
Anyone else notice it is;
"Muclim, Imam, Cleric, etc".

Instead of;
"FDNY Chaplain".

There's nothing bigoted or biased in this headline:

Imam resigns as incoming FDNY chaplain after report

If you read the article, he never was a FDNY Chaplain because he resigned before being sworn in. If they used your suggested "FDNY Chaplain" description, the headline would be factually inaccurate.

I never said the headline was, however the way the push "Muslim" onto it is to belittle the guys claims. Straight away people will instantly pre-judge him because of their 'racial' stereotype they have and is a poor piece of journalism.

I also said "the bigots" and didn't say the news paper or the source was biased/bigotry. Which was a comment about people who will 'glance' over the story due to him being a 'muslim', which nobody can deny will happen.

From other things said in the article by Mr Habib (I'm sorry I don't know the correct address for him) he seems to be a team player as he didn't bring up his feelings until pressed by the reporter and answered a question that was put to him directly.

from the original article

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.

"My position as a chaplain is that whoever did it, it's a tragic incident," he said. "I feel sorrow for the families who lost loved ones and for the firefighters who died in it. Whoever did it, it was a very wrong thing. It's always wrong to take an innocent human life."

Now this is what I personally find offensive -- in the original article

Mayor Bloomberg said he welcomed Habib's resignation. "The remarks were offensive and the mayor is satisfied that the chaplain has resigned," mayoral spokesman Ed Skyler said.

I don't see that he said anything offensive at all -- he basically said (when pressed by the reporter) that it was his opinion that more people were involved in the attack than the 19 people who were on the plane -- doesn't most of the world feel that -- heck in fact doesn't our government feel that since we didn't write it off as just 19 crackpots who did it.

Ya know what is interesting - if you go to the news piece on Yahoo and at the bottom click discuss, there are many who know (like most of us) that the official story is hogwash. However, there are many that actually believe the official story and think we are all nuts. It is really amusing to watch folks blindly believe what ever they are told and call us nuts without doing their own research. Its those that did their own research that can only come to the conclusion that there is many deceptions and falsehoods concerning the official 911 story.

When the ignorant think they are not ignorant and that the not ignorant are ignorant, its just better the Fox news at 10. Wow.

Wow I seen this is in the top 5 on yahoo news most popular!

I voted for it as a 5 star recommendation to read.

...lets keep the ball rolling!

[edit on 30-9-2005 by GameSetMatch]

Looks like it was a shocker to the FDNY.

"It's sad," said Kevin James, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Fire Department Personnel. "We had no idea those were his views. He's entitled to his opinion but he's not the right person for the chaplain." NYTIMES

Am I the only one who doesn't see that he said anything offensive. He isn't negating that there were 19 men on the planes who caused the crashes or that there were Saudi's involved he was just saying that he felt there is more to it than we know. Well heck I feel that too. I don't think he would have said that if the reporter didn't keep pressing him on the fact that he was educated in Saudia Arabia and didn't that make him a questionable choice (my paraphrasing of what I feel the reporter was getting at)

How do you reconcile this, from the Newsday article:

"He has no place in the New York Fire Department," said retired firefighter Jack Duggan of Rockland County. "I lost too many friends that day to listen to that rubbish."

"For a supposedly educated man, that's an incredibly ignorant statement," said George Baade of Ladder 14 in East Harlem. "His loyalty obviously doesn't lie with us, or with the United States."

Scoppetta said Habib and several other clerics were recommended by the Islamic Society. The society represents more than 100 Muslim fire personnel.

"He was vetted, there was a background check and a fingerprint check, and there was nothing negative that came up," he said. "We don't usually consider political views. This is an unusual situation."

A spokesman for the Islamic Society said the group took responsibility for recommending Habib without probing his opinions.

"We spoke with him and none of us thought those were his ideas of Sept. 11," said retired Fire Marshal Kevin James, a past president of the group. "He is entitled to his views, but it would not be appropriate for him to be a chaplain for the FDNY."

With this:

On the eve of a Republican National Convention invoking 9/11 symbols, sound bytes and imagery, half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act," according to the poll conducted by Zogby International. The poll of New York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004.

Source: www.911truth.org...

This man shares the doubts of half of his fellow New Yorkers (myself included). To call his remarks offensive is outrageous considering how many people share his sentiments.

-koji K.

[edit on 1-10-2005 by koji_K]

His father is probably a cab driver or runs a news stand. Becoming Chaplain must have made him very proud of the lad.

Do any articles mention a family background? Imans run in the family as much as jewish rabbis do. Even many irish families have priests and nuns as a family tradition. It's nursing in mine. The closest as we got are two sisters on the administrative end, but one for a catholic hospitals run by nuns though!


Immigrant families usually do have close ties to those back home. We met a Jordanian in an ice cream shop in Georgetown once who was working for his dad for a summer job but was heading back to school in the fall. (Hughes should go there for lunch sometime, it's near K-Street.)

My favorite food in Paris are the cheese crepes the street vendors make. And guess who's making them? Iranians.


Yes, indeed. I'm sure a prestigious position in the emminent NYFD made papa proud to see his son rise to such a position. And that's the American Dream of an integrated socieity.

Yet so in confilict with our fears and the nightmares the FD suffered on 9/11.

Habib told Newsday that he was skeptical of the official version of the attack on the World Trade Center, which killed 343 members of the Fire Department of New York.

(just love it when one newspaper quotes another)

I don't see anything wrong with public servants expressing their point of view as citizens. It's called 'free speech'... eh?



[edit on 1-10-2005 by psyopswatcher]