WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - America's Roman Catholic bishops Monday called for an end to economic
sanctions on Iraq, saying the "moral obtuseness" of U.S. policy caused
undeserved suffering among the Iraqi people.
The bishops, meeting in Washington, also faulted U.S. and British air attacks on Iraq."The comprehensive sanctions against Iraq have long since
ceased to be a moral tool of diplomacy, because they have inflicted indiscriminate and
unacceptable suffering on the Iraqi people," Bishop Joseph Fiorenza said in a
statement approved by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. "After more than
nine years of unparalleled and unmerited suffering, it is long past time to end the
economic embargo against Iraq," the statement said.
The United Nations imposed sanctions against Iraq after Baghdad's troops invaded Kuwait in
August 1990. Iraqi health authorities said Monday that nearly 1.2 million Iraqis have died
of health problems caused by the
sanctions over the past nine years. The bishops said it was primarily up to Iraq to
resolve lingering disputes
left from the 1991 Gulf War, but said economic sanctions had not been effective.
"Political and military sanctions remain acceptable; comprehensive economic sanctions
are not," the bishops' statement said. "It's time for a new approach to
Iraq," they said. "We cannot turn a deaf ear to the suffering of the Iraqi
people or a blind eye to the moral obtuseness of current U.S. policy." The bishops
said they were also concerned about ongoing air attacks on Iraq, saying this
"low-level warfare" should end. "The moral justification of such attacks
is, at best, unclear, yet the risks to Iraqi civilians are real," the bishops said.
U.S. and British planes have launched scores of attacks on Iraqi air defense and other
targets in the north and south of the country this year in response to attacks on their
planes patrolling no-fly zones. |
