- TEHRAN (AFP) - Iraq's
elections
were a defeat for the United States and its forces will now have to leave
the country in shame, the head of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards
was quoted as saying.
-
- "Today, almost two years after the Americans invaded
Iraq, the vessel of that country's foreign policy has sunk in the quagmire
of Iraq. The United States has no option but to leave that country in
shame,"
Major General Rahim Safavi was quoted as saying Tuesday by the official
news agency IRNA.
-
- "The broad turnout of the Iraqi nation for Sunday's
polls are a sign of the defeat of US policies in Iraq," he said in
a meeting with visiting Lebanese Defence Minister Abudur-Rahim
Murad.
-
- Iranian officials have voiced confidence that the high
turnout in Shiite areas of Iraq, despite threats of violence by Sunni
insurgents,
would benefit the list backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's
highest Shiite religious authority.
-
- The grouping is headed by Abdel Aziz Hakim, who heads
the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Before
the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the group received political,
financial and even military support from Iran, where it was based in
exile.
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