The Combatant Clergy Association discussed the parliamentary elections at its meeting. Some believe that it would be better for the Combatant Clergy not to openly participate in presenting a list, while others believe the opposite. / The failure to approve the proposed European Union constitution at the Italian summit has left them confused.
We went to the Police University for the professors and veterans program and to visit the exhibition. Mr. [Mohammad-Bagher] Ghalibaf, [Commander of the Police Force], gave a report. I spoke and presented the awards and visited the exhibition. They have put together a good collection of the force’s activities. We toured the university grounds by car; it is very large, covering 240 hectares west of [the village of] Kan, with about 200,000 square meters of educational and residential buildings and other facilities [constructed there].
At noon, Ayatollah Seyyed Abdulaziz Hakim, [President of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq], and his companions came. They had lunch with me, and we held detailed discussions about the situation in Iraq. They said that after the martyrdom of Mr. [Seyyed Mohammad-Bagher] Hakim, public attention to the Supreme Council had increased, and by assigning several official missions to the Badr Corps to provide security in several cases, its existence had become semi-official. With the maneuver they held at the fortieth-day ceremony for Martyr Hakim, its magnitude became clear to the people. They said that the Badr members had managed to bring about 100,000 people from across the country to Najaf; of course, I think this figure is exaggerated.
They said that America is admitting its inability in Iraq and has encountered particular problems in providing security, reconstruction, and administering people's affairs and also in drafting the constitution; because the group of advisers has opined that the process should begin with elections rather than with appointing people to prepare the draft, and America and the Arabs and ... know that an election would benefit the Shiites and are worried. We also discussed the exchange of pilgrims and Iranian investment and the return of Iraqi refugees.
In the evening, I attended the meeting of the Combatant Clergy Association at the Guardian Council. We were guests of Mr. [Mohammad] Yazdi. We discussed the parliamentary elections. Some believe that it would be better for the Combatant Clergy Association not to openly participate in presenting a list, while others hold the opposite view.
In one of the committees of the U.S. Congress, sanctions against Syria were approved in coordination with Israel's attack.
The failure to approve the proposed constitution of the European Union at the summit in Italy has left them confused. This draft [provides for] a permanent president and a foreign minister [for the European Union], and instead of the current consensus, a 70 percent majority of the voting population has been proposed for decisions, which small countries oppose, and the Pope [John Paul II, leader of the world's Catholics] has also asked that a reference to Christianity [in the text of the European Union constitution] be added.
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