US Churches want lesser role for Americans in Iraq

Members of the National Council of Churches, the United States’ largest group of Protestant and Orthodox churches, have called on President George Bush to turn over occupation authority in Iraq to the United Nations. Much of the outcry has stemmed from President Bush’s apparent mis-handling of the Iraqi war and absent Christian moral basis.

In an attempt to create lasting peace, the National Council of Churches has suggested that the United Nations would be better suited to creating peace in Iraq. They stated that "many people see our (American’s) policy as one based on protection of our country's economic interests narrowly defined, rather than on principles of human rights and justice that would serve our nation's interests.” Furthermore, they are convinced that “current policy is dangerous for America and the world and will only lead to further violence."

As the third largest church in the country with about 8 million members, the Methodist Council of Bishops said it "laments the continued warfare by the United States and coalition forces. The cycle of violence in which the United States is engaged has created a context for the denigration of human dignity and gross violations of human rights of Iraqi prisoners of war." They also demanded that the U.N. be given a more pivotal role in rebuilding Iraq.

The opposition to the United States’ occupation of Iraq without U.N. help has only further increased with the recent disclosure of American prison soldiers and guards forcing Iraqi prisoners into humiliating poses. Recently in Vatican City, the newspaper L'Osservatore Romano showed a picture of a soldier holding a prisoner by a leash. In an editorial, the newspaper stated that although the American soldier wanted to humiliate the prisoner, disclosure of such photos has instead humiliated the United States. "On the contrary, it is the torturer who with her leash stifles within herself any residue of humanity," L'Osservatore Romano wrote.