ATLANTA – Right-wing extremist Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty yesterday to carrying out the deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and three other attacks across the South, saying he picked the Summer Games to embarrass the American government in front of the world “for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand.”

“Because I believe that abortion is murder, I also believe that force is justified … in an attempt to stop it,” he said in a statement handed out by his lawyers after he entered his pleas in back-to-back court appearances, first in Birmingham, Ala., in the morning, then in Atlanta in the afternoon.

Rudolph, 38, worked out a plea bargain that will spare him from the death penalty. He will get four consecutive life sentences without parole for the four blasts that killed two people and wounded more than 120 others. The statement marked the first time he had ever offered a reason for the attacks.

“The purpose of the attack on July 27th [1996] was to confound, anger, and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand,” Rudolph said in the statement, which quoted the Bible throughout.

“I am not an anarchist. I have nothing against government or law enforcement in general. It is solely for the reason that this government has legalized the murder of children that I have no allegiance to nor do I recognize the legitimacy of this particular government in Washington.”

The bomb that exploded at the Olympics was hidden in a knapsack and sent nails and screws ripping through a crowd at Centennial Olympic Park during a concert. A woman was killed and 111 other people were wounded in what proved to be Rudolph’s most notorious attack, carried out on an international stage amid heavy security.

Rudolph said that he had planned a much larger attack on the Olympics that would have used five bombs over several days. He said he planned to make phone calls well in advance of each of the explosions, “leaving only uniformed arms-carrying government personnel exposed to potential injury.”

“I had sincerely hoped to achieve these objections without harming innocent civilians,” he said. But he said poor planning on his part made that five bomb plan impossible and he settled on just the Centennial Park attack.

“There is no excuse for this, and I accept full responsibility for the consequences of using this dangerous tactic,” he said. Rudolph said after the first explosion he decided to not attempt any more Olympics attacks.

He said he primed and detonated four other explosive devices in a vacant lot in downtown Atlanta and “left Atlanta with much remorse. “Rudolph also admitted bombing a gay nightclub in Atlanta, wounding five people, in 1997, and attacking a suburban Atlanta office building containing an abortion clinic that same year. Six people were wounded in that attack, which consisted of two blasts – first a small one to draw law officers, then a larger explosion.

At times Rudolph rocked in his chair, but otherwise he sat stone-faced and stared straight ahead as federal prosecutors detailed the Atlanta-area bombings down to the brand of nails, duct tape, and plastic food containers used to make the bombs.