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The following Reuters Report was taken from ABCNews Site on Nov 15th
1999
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters19991115_4146.html
A copy has also been sent tho Lloyd Axworthy MP, Canadian Minister of
Foreign Affairs
Regards,
Peter Griffith
WIRE:11/15/1999 19:19:00 ET
Bishops want to end economic sanctions on Iraq
WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) -
America's Roman Catholic bishops on
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 on 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 defence and other targets in the north and
south of the country this year in response to attacks on
their planes patrolling no-fly zones.
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