Egyptians say 9/11 was U.S., Israeli plot

CAIRO, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- Many Egyptian Arabs believe the United States and Israel planned the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as justification to invade Iraq, experts say.

Distrust of the United States is so strong on Cairo's streets it has become conventional wisdom that the attacks were a conspiracy meant to provide cover for a Western move to seize Iraq's oil reserves, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The unwillingness of ordinary Arabs to believe a small band of Muslim al-Qaida militants could succeed alone in a spectacular attack shows the depths of skepticism caused by the Iraq War, an Egyptian academic says.

"It is the result of widespread mistrust, and the belief among Arabs and Muslims the United States has a prejudice against them," Wahid Abdel Meguid, deputy director of Cairo's al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told the Times. "So they never think the United States is well intentioned, and they always feel that whatever it does has something behind it."

Hisham Abbas, a 22-year-old tourism studies major at Cairo University, told the Times, "They used (Sept. 11) as an excuse and went to Iraq. They killed Saddam, tortured people. How can you trust them?"