‘What need do we have for a bomb?’

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an American television interview aired Sunday that Iran was neither building a nuclear bomb nor headed to war with the United States.

The president’s motorcade arrived Sunday at the Midtown Manhattan hotel where he will be staying while he appears at a series of events including the U.N. General Assembly and a forum today at Columbia University.

Ahmadinejad’s appearances appear aimed at presenting his views directly to a U.S. audience amid rising tension and talk of war between the two nations.

“Well, you have to appreciate we don’t need a nuclear bomb. We don’t need that. What need do we have for a bomb?” Ahmadinejad said in the “60 Minutes” interview, which was taped in Iran on Thursday.

“In political relations right now, the nuclear bomb is of no use. If it was useful it would have prevented the downfall of the Soviet Union.”

He also said, “It’s wrong to think that Iran and the U.S. are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing.”

Before leaving Iran, the president said the American people had been denied “correct information” and that his visit would give them a chance to hear a different voice, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad’s scheduled address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday will be his third time attending the New York meeting in three years.

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger promised to introduce Ahmadinejad’s talk there with tough questions on topics including the Iranian leader’s skepticism of the Holocaust and his call for the destruction of Israel.