NOT IN GOD'S NAME
Feb 20 2003
Church leaders plead for peace
By Bob Roberts
BRITAIN'S two leading churchmen last night made an urgent plea for peace.
In a unique joint statement, the leader of the Church of England and the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales said politicians must look again to find a new way out of the Iraq crisis.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said they recognised appeasement was not an alternative to military action.
But they said with Lent approaching in two weeks, all sides must try to work through the United Nations to avoid war.
They declared: "War is always a deeply disturbing prospect; one that can never be contemplated without a sense of failure and regret that other means have not prevailed, and deep disquiet about all that may come in its train.
"We recognise that the moral alternative to military action cannot be inaction, passivity, appeasement or indifference.
"It is vital therefore that all sides in this crisis engage, through the United Nations - fully and urgently - in a process, including continued weapons inspections, that could and should render the trauma of war unnecessary."
They urged Iraq to "demonstrate forthwith its unequivocal compliance" with UN resolutions on weapons of mass destruction.
But they also called for George Bush and Tony Blair to re-examine whether they had done all they could to avoid war.
The two leaders referred to the coming of Lent and its encouragement to "examine ourselves honestly", adding: "We must hope and pray that with God's guidance, an outcome which brings peace with justice to Iraq and the Middle East may yet be found."
A spokesman for Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said the two leaders met last week and decided they must speak out.
Mr Blair is due to have a private audience with Pope John Paul II on Saturday. The Pope is urging a peaceful solution to the crisis.
As the Foreign Office warned Britons to get out of the war zone yesterday, Britain's UN ambassador said a new draft resolution on the crisis would probably be introduced within days.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock said it would contain a deadline for Iraq to show it is actively co-operating with weapons inspections.
Asked whether the UN would need to impose a deadline for compliance, he said: "Explicitly or implicitly, yes, I do expect that. Time will, I'm afraid, run out as time always does."
Despite the FO warning, a third group of anti-war protesters are due to fly out to Baghdad from London tomorrow.
Uzma Bashir, a 32-year-old lecturer from Hertfordshire and spokeswoman for the Truth Justice Peace Human Shield Action group, said the 50-strong party would not be intimidated by "government scare tactics".
She said: "We are determined to go and stay until the imminent threat is over. If there is war, between a half and one million Iraqis will be killed. We will be staying there for them."
The campaigners are set to join more than 100 others who have travelled from London planning to act as vountary human shields. In Kuwait, Britons appeared to be ignoring advice to leave. BA said there was no rush for tickets and one businesssman said: "I, for one, am not going. What is there to be frightened of...the war is all going north to Iraq.
"There are thousands of troops in Kuwait, a massive armada of ship offshore and dozens of planes in the region, all working in part to defend Kuwait. So, no, I am staying."
Diplomats said last night that chief weapons inspector Hans Blix would ask Iraq to destroy its al-Samoud 2 missiles. His team says they infringe the 90-mile range limit set by the UN.
This will be a key test for America of Saddam's willingness to surrender arms.
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