to happen as an excuse to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq . President Barack Obama already had delivered his address to the General Assembly and had left the grounds before Ahmadinejad spoke . White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president `` found the comments to be outrageous and offensive , given how close we are to ground zero , '' the New York site of the attacks . And Mark Kornblau , a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the U.N. , said in a statement , `` 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 . '' A European Union diplomat said that all 27 member nations had agreed to walk out if Ahmadinejad made inflammatory statements during his address . The exits did not deter the Iranian leader from his line of attack , however . Ahmadinejad went on to compare the death toll in the September 11 attacks to the casualty count in the wars in Afghanistan in Iraq . `` It was said that some
United Nations -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Delegates from the United States and other nations walked out of the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a fiery speech that criticized Washington , capitalism and the world body itself . Though incendiary statements from Ahmadinejad are nothing new , tension in the hall grew as the Iranian leader recounted various conspiracy theories about the September 11 , 2001 , terrorist attacks on New York and Washington . `` Some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack , '' Ahmadinejad told the General Assembly . He followed with the claim that the attacks were aimed at reversing `` the declining American economy and its scripts on the Middle East in order to save the Zionist regime . The majority of the American people , as well as most nations and politicians around the world , agree with this view . '' That appeared to be the last straw for many of the diplomats . Representatives from the United States , Britain , Sweden , Australia , Belgium , Uruguay and Spain walked out while Ahmadinejad asserted that U.S. government was involved in the attacks or allowed them