A senior Shiite cleric returning from decades of exile called for a government free of foreign influence on Saturday. Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al-Hakim, leader of Iraq's biggest Shiite Muslim group, crossed the border from Iran near the southern city of Basra to a jubilant welcome from crowds of emotional supporters. Shortly afterwards some 100,000 people packed a stadium in Basra to listen to him call for an independent government chosen wholly by Iraqis to replace ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, who was toppled by US-led forces in a war launched on March 20. "This government must be chosen by Iraqis and totally independent," Hakim told them in his first address in Iraq in 23 years. "We will not accept a government that is imposed on us."
| "I mean, we did okay for 30 years with the government Sammy imposed on us, but that's all over now. Now we need something different. We need pious government, government by pious men, men with turbans, men with automatic weapons! Men like, well, me... |
Hakim's close ties to Iran and the armed militia known as the Badr Forces which he commands have aroused some alarm in Washington, but he has sought to play down those fears. "We have gone such a long way in such hard times, we are now on the road to security and stability. This is a jihad (holy war) of reconstruction after the destruction of the oppressors," 63-year-old Hakim said in his address in Basra. "This must be a march for independence ... We used to say yes yes to freedom, now we say yes yes to independence," Hakim told his Shiite supporters, who across Iraq form a majority over Sunni Muslims and other religious groups.
| But the Hakim family was saying "yes, yes" from Teheran... |
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