'Ground Zero Mosque' Imam Says Project Must Go Forward in the Interest of National Security

Sept. 9, 2010— -- A Muslim imam behind a proposed cultural center two blocks from New York's Ground Zero said he must build there despite angry protests in order to defend America and its citizens against a "danger from the radicals in the Muslim world to our national security."

If he could start over, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said, he would propose a different site for his project.

"If I knew this would happen, that this would cause this kind of pain, I wouldn't have done it," Rauf, 61, said in an interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien on "Larry King Live" Wednesday evening. "My life has been dedicated to peacemaking."

But, capping a day-long rhetorical offensive that began Wednesday morning with an opinion piece in The New York Times, Rauf said he intends to go ahead with the "multifaith" center near the site where Islamic terrorists killed nearly 2,800 people because not doing so would unleash fury abroad.

"If we move from that location, the story will be that the radicals have taken over the discourse," Rauf told CNN. "The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack.

"There is a certain anger here [in America], no doubt," he said later in the interview. "But if we don't do this right, anger will explode in the Muslim world. If we don't do things correctly, this crisis could become much bigger than the Danish cartoon crisis [over images depicting the Prophet Mohammed], which resulted in attacks on Danish embassies in various parts of the Muslim world. And we have a much bigger footprint in the Muslim world."

For similar reasons, Rauf voiced displeasure on CNN with Florida Pastor Terry Jones's plan to burn Korans on 9/11 -- though he said today he was not planning to move his cultural center in exchange for Jones calling off his event.

"I am glad that Pastor Jones has decided not to burn any Korans," Rauf said in a statement read to ABC News' Christiane Amanpour. "However, I have not spoken with Pastor Jones or Imam Musri [a Florida imam purported to have acted as a go-between]. I am surprised by their announcement. We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we here to barter. We are here to extend our hand to build peace and harmony."

Rauf will appear on "This Week With Christiane Amanpour" this Sunday. Check your local listings for airtime in your area.

Until Jones announced the event was being cancelled today, the Gainesville, Fla., pastor vowed to go ahead with "International Burn a Koran Day" despite widespread pleas to scrap the idea on the grounds that it would put U.S. troops abroad in danger.

"In the Muslim world, it is already creating a lot of disturbance," Rauf told Amanpour in the interview to air Sunday. "That is exactly what I mean by the radicals dictating the agenda. And Gen. [David] Petraeus [commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan] and many people have pointed out that this type of action [is what] the radicals in each side feed upon."

On CNN Wednesday, Rauf said, "We have freedom of speech, but with freedom comes responsibility. ... This is dangerous for our national security, but also it is the un-Christian thing to do."

Earlier however, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, made a similar argument against Rauf's community center, denouncing it in the same breath as Jones' Koran-burning plan.

"To Pastor Jones and those who want to build a mosque," Boehner said, "just because you have a right to do something in America, does not mean it is the right thing to do."

Rauf told Amanpour that burning Korans and building his center near Ground Zero are nothing alike.

"You can't equate the two," he said. "This is now the moment between the radicals and the moderates. We are to look at it from the point of view of those who are trying to create a breakthrough for moderation against those who are trying to create a breakthrough for the radical voices. How can you equate burning of any person's scripture with an attempt to build interfaith dialogue? This is a house with multifaith stakeholders, with multifaith partners intended to work together towards building peace."