Rep. Tom Tancredo |
While refusing to dialogue with his most vocal Islamic critics, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo met with a select group of Muslims to clarify his remarks about threatening to target holy sites in response to a terrorist nuclear attack.
The Colorado Republican was visited Wednesday by a three-member delegation from the Free Muslims Coalition, a group urging mainstream Muslims to take a stronger stand against terrorists.
The coalition's president, Kamal Nawash, told the Rocky Mountain News after the meeting, "To the extent anyone was insulted by his comments, [Tancredo] said he's sorry about that."
"It confirmed what we always believed. He's a great guy … and he has no animosity toward Muslims," said Nawash, a Republican and former state Senate candidate in Virginia.
Meanwhile, officials for the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Tancredo was making a mistake by not including them in the meeting.
"If they want to talk to mainstream, moderate Muslims, this is the organization to talk to," Corey Saylor, government affairs director for CAIR, told the Denver paper.
"We work regularly with government officials. We've trained FBI members [in sensitivity to Muslims]. I don't think you can get more mainstream than that," Saylor said.
But Tancredo spokesman Will Adams declared CAIR will not be included in any future meetings.
"We don't think they represent moderate Muslims," he said
The Washington, D.C.-based CAIR is a spin-off of a group described by two former FBI counterterrorism chiefs as a "front group" for the terrorist group Hamas in the U.S.
Several CAIR leaders have been convicted on terror-related charges.
As WND reported, CAIR is urging the Republican Party to repudiate Tancredo's remarks.
No new apologies
Adams said the congressman did not offer any new apologies in his meeting with the Free Muslims Coalition but simply reiterated that he had no intent to offend innocent Muslims.
"If they took it as an insult, he's sorry they took it as an insult. He never meant it to be an insult," Adams told the News.
Nawash said he thought Tancredo's comments were taken out of context, but he told the congressman they insulted many Muslims who would agree with him otherwise.
"The criminals and terrorists who we are fighting couldn't care less if Mecca and Medina are bombed," Nawash said. "These terrorists use comments like that as ammunition for their arsenal."
Tancredo, according to Nawash, told the visitors he "should have been a little more careful in answering a hypothetical [question]."
Another representative at the meeting, Sheikh Ahmed Subhy Mansour, said he thinks Tancredo's remarks were motivated by frustration.
"I told him, if I were in his place as a congressman who cares about his people here, innocent people who may be killed by terrorist attack … I'd say the same," said Mansour, a Muslim scholar and imam.
Tancredo's remarks drew criticism from the State Department along with international outcry.
The U.S. Embassy in Bangladesh called his remarks "offensive to the United States government and to the American people."
At the White House press briefing yesterday, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said the State Department expressed the views of the administration.
"The president has made very clear that Islam is a religion that teaches peace, and it is a proud and great religion. And he stated his views on it," McClellan said.
In the interview July 15 with Pat Campbell of WFLA radio, Tancredo discussed his request for a briefing from the Justice Department on information it has on plans revealed by WND this week for a nuclear attack on the U.S. by al-Qaida terrorists.
Campbell noted that just after the July 7 London bombings, former Israeli counterterrorism intelligence officer Juval Aviv predicted an attack in the U.S. within the next 90 days. Aviv believes the plan is to attack not one big city, like New York, but half-a-dozen smaller ones, including towns in the heartland.
The host asked Tancredo, "Worst case scenario, if they do have these nukes inside the border, what would our response be?"
The congressman replied: "There are things you could threaten to do before something like that happens, and then you have to do afterwards, that are quite draconian."
"Well," Tancredo continued, "what if you said something like, 'If this happens in the United States and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you could take out their holy sites.'"
Campbell: "You're talking about bombing Mecca?"
Tancredo: "Yeah. What if you said, we recognize that this is the ultimate threat to the United States, therefore this is the ultimate response."
The congressman quickly added, "I don't know, I'm just throwing out some ideas, because it seems that at that point in time you would be talking about taking the most draconian measures you could imagine. Because other than that, all you could do is tighten up internally."
Tancredo's office clarified the comments, saying Tancredo was not advocating an attack on Muslim holy sites.
Previous stories:
Tancredo talk too offensive? Too bad, says congressman
CAIR to GOP: Repudiate Tancredo
Tancredo clarifies 'ultimate response'