Mayor Nagin in Secret Sitdown with Farrakhan

Racially polarizing Nation of Islam chief Louis Farrakhan claimed on Friday that he had a private meeting with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, where Nagin gave him the information that Farrakhan later used to claim New Orleans' levees had been deliberately blown up.

Speaking to a gathering of his supporters in Memphis while promoting his upcoming Millions More March, Farrakhan said he met with Nagin in Dallas, Texas where the New Orleans mayor has relocated his family.

"We did a whirlwind tour where we hired a chartered jet, we flew to Dallas, Texas - members of the Millions More Movement - where we met with Mayor Nagin," Farrakhan claimed, in videotape of his Memphis speech posted to his Millions More Movement web site Tuesday.

It was during that meeting, Farrakhan said, where he obtained evidence that he would later use to claim New Orleans' levees were blown up.

"Mayor Nagin told us there was a 25-foot crater under the levee," Farrakhan explained, before cautioning that the New Orleans Democrat "didn't say there was a bomb. He just said there was a crater."
Farrakhan then added: "I say they blew it [up]."

Citing an Internet report, the Nation of Islam chief explained how the information he got from Nagin led him to conclude that the levees had been deliberately destroyed:

"Divers inspecting the ruptured levee walls surrounding New Orleans found something that piqued their interest - burn marks on underwater debris chunks from the broken levee wall," Farrakhan said.

"One diver - a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - saw the burn marks and knew immediately what caused them."

Though Farrakhan detailed his meeting with the New Orleans mayor at an open forum, the press has kept word of the Farrakhan-Nagin summit under wraps.