US Wants UN Human Rights Expert Richard Falk Fired for 9/11 Comments

UNITED NATIONS -- The United States demanded today that the U.N. expert on Palestinian human rights be fired for suggesting that 9/11 was carried out by the U.S. government and then covered up by the American media.

"In my view, Mr. [Richard] Falk's latest commentary is so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position on behalf of the U.N.," said Susan Rice, U.S. envoy to the world body.

Falk, a law professor from Princeton University, wrote in his blog on Jan. 11 that "awkward gaps and contradictions in the official explanations" fuel suspicions that the United States staged the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In a file picture dated July 24, 2005, US professor Richard Falk, gives a speech at the opening of the World Tribunal on Iraq in Istanbul.

Cem Turkel, AFP / Getty Images

Princeton professor Richard Falk, shown in 2005, is under fire for remarks he made about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"What may be more distressing than the apparent cover up is the eerie silence of the mainstream media, unwilling to acknowledge the well-evidenced doubts about the official version of the events: an al Qaeda operation with no foreknowledge by government officials. Is this silence a manifestation of fear or cooption, or part of an equally disturbing filter of self-censorship?" Falk wrote.

Rice condemned Falk's "despicable and deeply offensive" remarks.

"The United States has in the past been critical of Mr. Falk's one-sided and politicized approach to his work for the U.N., including his failure to condemn deliberate human rights abuses by Hamas, but these blog comments are in another category altogether," she said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also blasted Falk for the remarks. "Recently, a special rapporteur suggested there was an 'apparent cover-up' in the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States," he told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva today.

"I want to tell you, clearly and directly. I condemn this sort of inflammatory rhetoric. It is preposterous -- an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in that tragic terrorist attack," he said.

But Ban does not have the power to fire Falk, who was appointed by the Human Rights Council, made up of 47 nations.

"The special rapporteurs and other independent experts who represent the Human Rights Council are appointed by the council, not by the secretary-general. Their continuance in their jobs is thus for the council to decide," Vijay Nambiar, Ban's chief of staff, told U.N. Watch, the Geneva-based nongovernmental organization that monitors the U.N.

Rice pointed out that the U.S. and other diplomats walked out last year when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, insinuated that the U.S. government was behind 9/11 and called for an international panel to investigate what happened.