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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (394279)	4/17/2003 4:44:19 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Respond to of 769670

Top Iraqi opposition leader returns home from Iran -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TEHRAN, April 16 (Reuters) - A top Iraqi Shi'ite opposition leader ended 23 years in exile in Iran and returned home on Wednesday to a rapturous welcome, his son said. Abdelaziz Hakim, deputy head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), arrived in the southern Iraqi city of Kut. He was apparently the first Iranian-backed Shi'ite opposition leader to return to Iraq since U.S.-led forces toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein last week. "Abdelaziz Hakim was given a warm welcome by thousands of people in al-Kut upon his arrival early on Wednesday," his son, Mohsen Hakim, told Reuters. Iranian television showed Abdelaziz Hakim being welcomed by supporters in the city, where the majority of the population is Shi'ite. Shi'ites make up two-thirds of Iraq's 26 million people, who include Sunni Muslims, Kurds and Christians. Mohsen Hakim said his father's role would be "to restore peace and security". He did not elaborate. The Tehran-based SCIRI boycotted a meeting of Iraqi religious and political leaders that was held on Tuesday near the Iraqi city of Nassiriya to map out the postwar political future of the country. "The meeting was not successful because it did not represent all the Iraqi groups," Mohsen Hakim said. Participants at the meeting approved a 13-point statement advocating federal democracy for Iraq and the dissolution of Saddam's once-feared Baath party. They agreed to meet again in 10 days. SCIRI's top religious leader, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir Hakim, has also decided to go home after 23 years in exile in Iran but no date has been announced for his return.