'Ground Zero' Mosque Staying Put, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Says

(Sept. 9) -- The imam behind a controversial plan to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque near the ground zero site of the former World Trade Center says he won't move the proposed project. But if he had to do it over, he'd put it somewhere else.

"If I knew that this would happen, cause this kind of pain, I wouldn't have done it," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told CNN Wednesday night.

But switching locations now will send a dangerous message, Rauf told Soledad O'Brien on "Larry King Live."

Lorenzo Bevilaqua, CNN / AP

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf appeared on "Larry King Live" Wednesday and told guest host Soledad O'Brien on Wednesday that moving his planned mosque from its proposed site could cause a backlash in the Muslim world.

"The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack," he said, and that could encourage Muslim extremists to attack troops overseas as well as American citizens at home. "It will strengthen the argument of the radicals to recruit, their ability to recruit and their increasing aggression and violence against our country."

Hundreds have protested plans to build a mosque two blocks from ground zero, where more than 2,700 people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001. As the days count down to Saturday's ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., tensions are mounting. Protesters on both sides are promising to demonstrate on Saturday.

The project, known as Park51, features a prayer room, a performing arts center and athletic facilities, including a gym and swimming pool.

The imam said the downtown site -- surrounded by fast-food restaurants, delis and adult entertainment venues -- should not be considered sacred ground. "You can't say a place that has strip joints is sacred ground," he said.

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Rauf, who had been largely quiet about the controversy, said Wednesday he was surprised by angry opposition to the Islamic house of worship, saying that protesters were at odds with "the fundamental American principle of separation of church and state."

Despite saying he wouldn't relocate the project, later in the interview he acknowledged that "nothing is off the table."

Indeed, Egyptian-born Hisham Elzanaty, a prominent member of the consortium that is developing the site, told The Associated Press that while he would like to see the project go forward, he is primarily a businessman who wants to turn a profit on the real estate he purchased on the Park Avenue site.

"Develop it, raze it, sell it," he said. "If someone wants to give me $18 million or $20 million today, it's all theirs."