The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, said the course was "totally objectionable" and "against our values".

course has now been suspended.

"It was just totally objectionable, against our values, and it wasn't academically sound," Gen Dempsey said

noting in particular that some people believe the United States orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks as part of a propaganda campaign to “reverse the declining American economy” and to “save the Zionist regime,” meaning Israel.

He has said in less public circumstances that the Sept. 11 attacks were “a big fabrication” used “as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan.”

The United States Mission to the United Nations quickly issued a response to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s speech. “Rather than representing the aspirations and goodwill of the Iranian people, Mr. Ahmadinejad has yet again chosen to spout vile conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic slurs that are as abhorrent and delusional as they are predictable,” the mission said in a statement. Mr. Ahmadinejad framed his comments about Sept. 11 as an examination of opinions, an approach he has used in questioning the Holocaust, as well.