100 Iraqi Clerics Denounce US, Call for Muslim State

The NY Times: "We don't want a formal democracy that will give Iraqis the right to say what they want but the government will do what it wants," Sheik Muhammad Fartousi told the gathering at the El Hekmah Mosque in the heart of Baghdad's vast Shiite slum formerly known as Saddam City.

"We are all against the coalition because they are infidels," said Sheik Abbas al-Zubaidi, one of the Shiite clerics who have taken control of several Baghdad hospitals. "We are demanding an Islamic state."

"We will have an Islamic state here that mainly orders good and prevents evil," Mr. Zubaidi said. He added in the state he envisions, "Televisions are not allowed, dominoes are not allowed, women wearing makeup are not allowed, dubbed foreign films are not allowed."

"It will be a state whose laws are written in the Koran," he said.

Real good for building democracy.