NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been warned that he would be subject to sharp challenges during his visit to Columbia University Monday, the school head Lee C. Bollinger said Wednesday.

    "Any sense that the president was not forewarned about this, or caught off guard, are completely untrue," local media quoted Columbia University President Bollinger as saying.

    In his introduction of the Iranian president on campus Monday, Bollinger said Ahmadinejad exhibited "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," called his past denial of the Holocaust "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated" and he doubted he had the "intellectual courage" to answer questions openly.

    The harshness of the introduction prompted some complaints in Iran and elsewhere. And on campus and in editorials across the United States, on political blogs and throughout academia, there was a sharp division of opinion about Bollinger's remarks, the reports said.

    Ahmadinejad appeared to take the comments in stride, although he complained Bollinger's speech had contained "many insults" and amounted to "unfriendly treatment".

    Bollinger said Wednesday that he had no regrets over the way the event was handled.

    Civility, he said, can make it difficult to express sharp opinion. But he added he felt it important to express "a sense of moral and ethical outrage" over Ahmadinejad's policies.

    In the days before Ahmadinejad's visit, Columbia's media relations office released at least two public statements indicating that Bollinger specifically intended to question the Iranian leader sharply about his denial of the Holocaust, his public call for the destruction of the State of Israel and his reported support for international terrorism.

Iranian leader calls for more study of Holocaust issue

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at Columbia University in New York, September 24, 2007.  (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

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