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by REGINALD PATRICK and MICHAEL SCHOLL
The Fire Department's new Muslim chaplain abruptly resigned yesterday after saying in a published interview that a conspiracy, not 19 al-Qaida hijackers, may have been responsible for bringing down the World Trade Center.
The FDNY announced the resignation of Imam Intikab Habib an hour before he was to be officially sworn into the $18,000-a-year, part-time post at a fire promotion ceremony at Randall's Island.
Sept. 11 families and firefighters expressed shock at Habib's views and applauded the decision.
Elmer Bochino of Oakwood Heights, whose daughter died in the World Trade Center, called the cleric's words "ridiculous."
"Who does he think destroyed those buildings? It's good he decided to quit. We don't need him. Do we have that many Muslims in the Fire Department that we need one like that to be the chaplain?" he asked.
Joseph DiMartino of Prince's Bay, whose wife Debra Ann perished on Sept. 11., dismissed Habib as "a nut." Asked whether the selection process for FDNY chaplain should be reworked, DiMartino replied: "I don't blame the process."
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta told reporters that "It became clear to [Habib] that he would have difficulty functioning as an FDNY chaplain.
"There has been no prior indication that he held those views," Scoppetta added.
FDNY officials said the 30-year-old native of Guyana had been recommended for the chaplain's post by the FDNY Islamic Society, a fraternal group.
However, at an afternoon press conference at union headquarters, Uniformed Firefighter Association president Stephen J. Cassidy said Scoppetta should take the blame for picking Habib.
"He has misled the public into believing that the FDNY Islamic Society appointed this man," Cassidy said. "The truth is that the appointment of a chaplain is at the sole discretion of the fire commissioner himself."
"It's sad," said Kevin James, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Fire Department Personnel. "We had no idea those were his views. He's entitled to his opinion but he's not the right person for the chaplain."
In a telephone interview, Capt. Peter Gorman, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, said Habib would have been ineffective if he had stayed on.
"He certainly started off on the wrong foot," Gorman said.
"Resigning was the right thing to do. I'm glad he did it quickly," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Habib "was not a person who should be representing a department that was devastated on 9/11 and answering their spiritual needs," the mayor added.
In an interview published yesterday in Newsday, Habib, who had passed a background check for the chaplain's post, said he had his doubts about the official version of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks which killed close to 3,000 people, including 343 firefighters.
"I've heard professionals say that nowhere ever in history did a steel building come down with fire alone," Habib told the newspaper. "It takes two or three weeks to demolish a building like that. But it was pulled down in a couple of hours. Was it 19 hijackers who brought it down, or was it a conspiracy?"
His comments came after Newsday asked him whether he thought firefighters would object to a chaplain trained in Saudi Arabia because 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were born in that country.
"There are so many conflicting reports about it," Habib was quoted as saying. "I don't believe it was 19 ... hijackers who did those attacks." He said he didn't know who was responsible for the attacks.
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