George W. Bush: War criminal?
By CHB Staff
Mar 10, 2003, 05:42
Is Pope John Paul II telling the world that if President George W. Bush goes ahead with his plans to invade Iraq without United Nations sanctions, the Catholic Church will consider Bush a war criminal?
“A war would be a defeat for humanity and would be neither morally nor legally justified,” the Pope told Bush in a papal message delivered last week by a special envoy. “It is an unjust war.”
This leads even conservatives like John McLaughlin, host of the syndicated McLaughlin Group and a longtime supporter of both conservative and Republican causes, to have second thoughts.
“The Pope is saying an invasion of Iraq would be criminal,” says McLaughlin, who is also a former Jesuit priest. “A statement that strong cannot be ignored.”
As Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell scramble for votes in their uphill battle to win UN Security Council approval for an immediate invasion of Iraq, the Pope’s words are creating growing problems for Bush at home.
On Capitol Hill, where many members of Congress are Catholic, the Pope’s words add to increasing concern that Bush’s stance of Iraq has left the U.S. in a no-win diplomatic corner.
“The Pope is more than just the leader of a religious community,” says McLaughlin, who served as a speechwriter for Republican presidents Nixon and Ford. “The Vatican is a recognized sovereign entity with its own diplomatic standing and recognition.”
Although no Catholic member of Congress, Republican or Democrat, has yet announced opposition to the war based on the Pope’s comments, sources within both parties on the Hill say it is only matter of time before it happens.
“We can talk until the cows come home about the separation of church and state but the fact remains that religion carries a lot of weight on the Hill,” says political scientist George Harleigh. “The Republicans use religion to justify opposition to abortion, the religious right answers to their leaders, the Jewish members listen to what Israel wants and the Catholics listen to the Pope.”
Supporters of the Pope’s position say the opposition is not driven by antiwar sentiments. The Pope did, in fact, support the U.S. war against terror in Afghanistan. But when it comes to Iraq, the Pope does not feel the U.S. has made its case for immediate invasion before the UN Security Council has exhausted other diplomatic means.
This makes members of Congress with large blocs of Catholic voters back home sit up and take notice.
“I want to think my President is right in this cause,” said a longtime Republican member of Congress on Saturday, “but I also have to listen to my conscience and the leader of my religious faith. The phone calls from my Republican district are running 4-1 against invading Iraq. I also have to listen to my constituents.”
Some Republican members are now telling House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert that they want a new Congressional resolution to authorize military action against Iraq but sources in Hastert’s office say the speaker is resisting because he feels such a resolution would fail.
“We don’t have the votes on either side of the aisle to back the President’s play on this,” says one Hastert aide. “A vote would undermine the President and destroy our credibility in the world’s eyes.”
Lon Edwards, who worked in the Republican administration of Bush’s father, says the President’s credibility is already gone.
“We say we are going to war with Iraq to enforce that country’s non-compliance with a resolution of the United Nations. But the UN, whose resolution we are using to justify the action, refuses to ratify that action," Edwards says. "Where’s the credibility in that?"
Other diplomatic professionals agree that the President’s position is growing more and more untenable each day the U.S. set deadline of March 17 grows near.
“I went to work in the State Department when Richard Nixon was in office,” says retired diplomat Morris Leibmann, who left the State Department because he didn’t like Bill Clinton’s actions as President. “I would be ashamed to be representing the United States with our allies right now. We’re acting like a spoiled bully who is throwing a temper tantrum because he didn’t get his way.”
Repeated attempts to obtain official comments from The White House or the offices of House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert or Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist were unsuccessful over the last three days.
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