September 12 2006

President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that it's at least plausible that the U.S. government was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Chavez did not specifically accuse the U.S. government of having a hand in the Sept. 11 attacks, but rather suggested that theories of U.S. involvement bear examination.

The Venezuelan leader, an outspoken critic of U.S. President George W. Bush, was reacting to a television report investigating a theory that the Twin Towers were brought down with explosives after hijacked airplanes crashed into them in 2001.

"The hypothesis is not absurd . . . that those towers could have been dynamited," Chavez said in a speech to supporters. "A building never collapses like that, unless it's with an implosion."

"The hypothesis that is gaining strength . . . is that it was the same U.S. imperial power that planned and carried out this terrible terrorist attack or act against its own people and against citizens of all over the world," Chavez said.

"Why? To justify the aggressions that immediately were unleashed on Afghanistan, on Iraq."

Chavez has said the U.S. launched those wars to ensure its political and economic power.

The U.S. government says al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden masterminded the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"A plane supposedly crashed into the Pentagon, but no one ever found a single remnant of that plane," Chavez said, citing a television program he had seen on Venezuela's state television.

Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro raised the same theories in an earlier speech Tuesday, and called for an independent investigation.

"It's really worrisome to think that all of that could have been a great conspiracy against humanity," Maduro said. "An independent international investigation must be carried out one day to discover the truth about the events of Sept. 11."