By Kevin Krolicki DETROIT, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on Sunday angrily denounced the war in Iraq and called for the impeachment of U.S. President George W. Bush in an appearance billed as his final public address. "What should they do about a man who has been lying to America?" Farrakhan said. Then, turning to face Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and shared the stage in Detroit, he added: "If you won't impeach him, sanction him." Farrakhan, 73, was released from a hospital last month after undergoing a 12-hour abdominal surgery related to prostate cancer. There had been widespread speculation Farrakhan would use what supporters called a farewell speech to name a successor or to shift his movement closer to mainstream Islam. But Farrakhan instead devoted much of a wide-ranging, two-hour address to a critique of Bush's foreign policy, which he linked to prophecy of the apocalypse. "Why did they invade Iraq? Why did they kill Saddam? Why did they kill his sons?" Farrakhan said. "The real story is Saddam Hussein became an economic threat." He compared America's decision to go to war with Iraq as being as one-sided as former boxing great Muhammad Ali, a black Muslim, "fighting a quadriplegic." But he said the war had touched off a cycle of violence that would end with "cities destroyed ... not by a terrorist but by God." Farrakhan also said the United States had no right to deny nuclear power to Iran, saying, "International law says Iran has that right." He urged his almost exclusively black audience to resist the calls of U.S. military recruiters, who he said targeted young people lacking education and opportunity. "I'm here to tell you brothers and sisters that's the worst decision you can ever make," he said. "This is going down, and if you join it you go down with it." Thousands of Farrakhan's supporters listened from chairs on the playing field at Ford Field, home to the Detroit Lions football team. Farrakhan took the stage in the end zone after an introduction featuring Grammy-winning R&B singer Anita Baker, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and Conyers. He was embraced when he took the stage by Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. He concluded his address by urging followers to read a range of books, including recent works by former President Jimmy Carter and leftist scholar Noam Chomsky. Farrakhan handed over temporary control of the Nation of Islam to a board last year because of an illness he said had taken him to "death's door." "My time is up," he said on Sunday. Farrakhan's career has been marked by controversy, provocation and charges of anti-Semitism. He once called Judaism a "gutter religion" and praised Adolph Hitler as a "great" man. He was barred from entering Britain in 1986 because the government said he espoused racist views. Farrakhan said on Sunday he had never been "anti-gay" or "anti-white," saying those labels had been applied by people looking to discredit him and incite his murder. Farrakhan's address was part of an annual Saviours' Day event marking the birth of the Nation of Islam's founder, W.D. Fard. Active membership in the Nation of Islam is estimated to number in the tens of thousands. Its emphasis on racial separatism and deification of Fard have kept it at odds with mainstream Islam in the past.
