The following are excerpts from a Friday sermon at Tehran University. The preacher is 'Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the head of Iranian Expediency Council.

'Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani: If Mr. Bush means what he says and is on the Iranian people's side, he should have joined your demonstration [marking the Islamic revolution] and should have chanted slogans along with you. Okay, I was just kidding. Obviously, he will not and should not come, but he can't take back his words anymore. If he is on your side, if he is on the [Iranian] people's side – it is the same people that filled the streets of Iran yesterday.

Two or three days ago, Channel 5 of the French TV aired a report on the aid the US provided Saddam during the eight years [of the Iran-Iraq war]… It's really shocking… It's disgraceful that America got itself into such a mess. The report mentioned that America had sent anthrax germs to Saddam on numerous occasions, so he could use them against Iran instead of chemical weapons, and that America had supplied the Iraqis with equipment and information for the manufacture of chemical weapons.

This democracy… The elections in Iraq were held despite the American opposition. It was the will of the Iraqi people and the religious authorities. [The elections] were the result of pressure by Ayatollah Sistani, by the Iraqi religious authorities, and by the fighting forces in Iraq on America. They left the US no choice but to allow the elections.