His presence drew both excitement and hatred; his words shocked some and captivated others. But still, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan spoke, condemning President Bush’s foreign policy and calling for racial and ethnic equality.

And in Dorchester Friday, people listened.

‘Bush is a deceiver,’ he told an overflow crowd at Muhammad’s Mosque No. 11 in Dorchester’s Grove Hall, where the minister preached in the 1970s. ‘I told him, if he attacks Iraq unprovoked, he will unite the entire Muslim world against America.’

On a stop on his newest national crusade for peace, the Nation of Islam leader spoke out against the pending war with Iraq, calling President Bush a ‘warmonger.’

‘Allah has shown me what’s in Bush’s mind,’ the leader said. ‘I don’t care if Iraq lets inspectors in tomorrow Bush will go to war.’

Farrakhan, 69, was welcomed by chants of ‘Long Live Muhammed’ as he made his way to the mosque podium. And along with open condemnation of Bush’s Iraqi politics, he devoted a great deal of his speech to the need for black power in what he described as a white-dominated nation.

‘We who are descendants of Africa know what suffering is,’ he said. ‘We know what it’s like to struggle for simple things … to suffer just to have a drink of water from a fountain that was not labeled ‘colored.’ We’ve had to fight, bleed and die for every inch of progress we’ve made in America. It’s time we rise to do what God has in store. Our job is to become masters in the land we were once sold as slaves.’

‘You say it, Minister,’ one audience member shouted in response.

Farrakhan encouraged fellow black Muslims to educate themselves about United States foreign policy.

‘I’ve been all over the world, and this is the best nation, but her policies are wicked,’ he said. ‘Open your eyes don’t die a fools’ death.’

Farrakhan alleged ever since Bush was ‘selected’ into office, the government has lied about politics in the Middle East. The Bush administration is using the World Trade Center attacks as an excuse to strip citizens of their rights, he said.

‘After those towers went down, out of this fervor the country became united,’ Farrakhan began. ‘Then they passed the Patriot’s Bill and started stripping the American people of their rights. Now, all they have to do is say you’re an enemy combatant and they can pick you up and put you away. They’re tearing up the Constitution little by little in the name of security.’

The notion that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction is pure fiction, Farrakhan added. He alleged the pending war with Iraq has roots in the Bush’s monetary investment in oil.

‘Your life don’t mean nothing if it gets in the way of oil,’ Farrakhan said. ‘Farrakhan is not playin’ with you! You gotta wake up!’

Through his harsh words and verbal attack on the president, the minister still attempted to convey a message of peace.

‘Bitterness allows you to speak to those who are bitter, and hatred allows you to speak to those who hate, but love allows you to speak to all,’ he said.

In a letter written to Bush in December, Farrakhan said he warned the president that a war with Iraq would only further anger the Muslim world against the United States.

‘I advised [Bush] that if he pursued this course, the coalition against terrorism would fall apart,’ he said in a news conference Friday. ‘What happened in Bali will be repeated around the world.’

According to Farrakhan, Bush chose not to respond to the letter.