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Remorseless Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad warns: 'We will be attacking the U.S.'

A self-proclaimed "Muslim soldier" who bungled a plot to bomb Times Square promised Monday that others will succeed where he failed.

A remorseless Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty to the frightening scheme to blow up the Crossroads of the World on a busy Saturday night, when it was packed with New Yorkers and tourists.

"It's a war," Shahzad, 30, said in a hateful screed to Manhattan Federal Judge Miriam Cedarbaum.

"I'm going to plead guilty a hundred times over because until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes ... we will be attacking the U.S.," he said. "And I plead guilty to that."

He never once said he was sorry, even when Cedarbaum pressed him on the human carnage - including the death of many children - he could have caused if his bomb-packed SUV exploded the night of May 1.

"Did you look around to see who they were?" Cedarbaum asked him of his potential victims.

"Well, the people select the government," Shahzad said. "We consider them all the same. ..."

"Including the children?" the judge demanded.

"Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don't see children, they don't see anybody," Shahzad fired back.

"They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It's a war, and in war, they kill people. They're killing all Muslims."

"One has to understand where I'm coming from," Shahzad told the judge. "I consider myself ... a Muslim soldier."

"And it's a war to kill people," he coldly declared.

Wearing a white knit skullcap and a blue shirt and pants, the former Elizabeth Arden account analyst-turned-Jihad Joe calmly detailed how he learned to make bombs in the militant Waziristan stronghold in Pakistan last year.

He returned to the United States in early February, with $4,000 in Taliban cash. The terror group continued sending him money in two payments - $5,000 on Feb. 25 from a co-conspirator and $7,000 more on April 10.

He used the money to buy a Nissan Pathfinder off craigslist and parts to turn the vehicle into a crude rolling bomb. He parked the SUV near a packed theater in the Marriott Marquis hotel - and tried to ignite the bomb.

He says he still doesn't know why the bomb didn't explode - and waited up to five minutes for it to blow.

"I was waiting to hear a sound, but I didn't hear a sound. So I walked to Grand Central and went home," he said, adding that he carried a concealed 9-mm. rifle he had packed "for my self-defense" should he have to confront cops.

The gun was found in his car when he was caught two days later at Kennedy Airport trying to escape the U.S. aboard a Dubai-bound jetliner.

Shahzad pleaded guilty yesterday to 10 federal crimes, including the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism.

He faces life in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 5. He is likely to end up in a federal penitentiary in either Florence, Colo., or Terre Haute, Ind. The worst of the worst are sent to Colorado's "administrative maximum" prison - known as Supermax.

Ramzi Yousef, the 1993 World Trade Center bomber, renounced Islam there. Other inmates are Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Al Qaeda thug Zacarias Moussaoui.

Attorney General Eric Holder said justice was served by the guilty plea. "Faisal Shahzad plotted and launched an attack that could have led to serious loss of life, and today the American criminal justice system ensured that he will pay the price for his actions," Holder said.

Mayor Bloomberg warned the city is still in the cross hairs.

"The NYPD, FBI and federal prosecutors deserve enormous credit for cracking - and closing - the Faisal Shahzad case so quickly," the mayor said, "but we know that our city remains a top target for terrorists, and we will continue doing everything possible to keep our city safe."