DATE=08/15/2003

TYPE=ON THE LINE SHORT

NUMBER=1-

TITLE=FREEDOM IN IRAQ

INTERNET=Yes

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0038

CONTENT= INSERTS IN DALET

Voice: This is On the Line and I'm ______________. One of the people who has hailed the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq is Ayatollah Seyed Hussan Khomeini. He's the grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the man who led Iran's radical Islamic revolution nearly a quarter of a century ago. Hussan Khomeini recently left Iran for the Iraqi city of Najaf, historically the center of Shia Islam, and now home for a growing number of dissident Iranian clerics.

Ayatollah Khoemeini has said that in Iraq, Iran and other Muslim countries, quote, "Religion has got to be separated from regimes, such as in America," end quote. And he says that the people of Iran need to be liberated from the clerical regime his grandfather founded.

Akbar Ahmad is chairman of the Islamic Studies Department at American University. He says that Hussan Khomeini's presence in Iraq is a significant development:

ACT1 ALBAR AHMED 0:29

"Khomeini is a name known throughout the world, throughout the Muslim world. It has a resonance outside the Shia world. Then, what he has said the issues he's raising are highly significant. He's welcoming American intervention in Iran. He's talking about separation between state and religion. These are, in a sense, challenging not only prevailing orthodoxy, but his own grandfather. So here we have the potential for an important movement within Shia Islam."

Voice: Alireza Nourizadah, director of the Centre for Arab-Iranian Studies in London, says that Hussan Khomeini is expressing himself freely:

ACT2 ALIREZA NOURIZADAH 0:47

"He is saying within the Islamic society, like the communist countries, always the individual was sacrificed for the rule of majority or for the right of the Umma, or right of the nation, and we never respected the freedom of an individual in our society. Now is the time the individual should come and talk about his ideas and fight for his freedom. What is in Iran [is] a false regime which calls itself [an] Islamic republic. It is not an Islamic republic. It has nothing to do with Islam, and there should be separation of state and religion, and this is something which we always ask for, and the majority of the Iranians want separation of state from the church."

Voice: Haydar Hamdani is an Iraqi-American journalist. Mr. Hamdani says that Sunni and Shia Muslims have lived side by side in Iraq for a long time. Both are now working together to re-build their country:

ACT3 HAYDAR HAMDANI 0:34

"We're seeing it right now. We're seeing the Iraqi council. They have legitimacy, and people in Iraq are supporting this governing council. My belief, and I was in Iraq and I know the Iraqis will put these things behind them for their future. I don't think there's going to be a lot of conflict between the Sunni and the Shia, and all these historical events, but rather we'll see the Iraqis are getting along, and do their business."

Voice: President George W. Bush saYS, "Whether you're Sunni or Shia or Kurd or Chaldean or Assyrian or Turkoman or Christian or Jew...no matter what your faith, freedom is God's gift to every person in every nation. As freedom takes hold in Iraq, the Iraqi people will choose their own leaders and their own government."

For On the Line, I'm ________________.