Williams says US has lost moral high ground since 9/11

The head of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has criticised US foreign policy saying that the country has lost the moral high ground since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

"We have only one hegemonic power at the moment. It is not accumulating territory, it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That's not working," the Archbishop said during an interview with Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel.

When asked if he believed the USA had lost the morale high ground since 9/11, he responded, "Yes".

The Archbishop compared the current US military campaign in Iraq with the actions of the British Empire.

"It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering and normalising it. Rigthly or wrongly, that is what the British Empire did -- in India for example," he told Emel.

"It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put things back together again -- Iraq for example."

The Archbishop called for "a generous and intelligent programme of aid directed to the societies that have been ravaged; a check on the economic exploitation of defeated territories; a demilitarisation of their presence".

"All these things would help [retake the moral high ground]," he told the magazine.

He continued by speaking against the Israeli security fence, saying, "Whatever justification is given for the existence of the wall, the human cost is colossal."

He also spoke of the problems faced by Christians in Pakistan saying he was"surprised by how the extremely small Christian minority there is perceived as so deeply threatening by an overwhelming Muslim majority."

The Archbishop's comments on US policy in Iraq won the support of a number of MPs including actinng Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable and Sir Gerald Kaufman who served as Shadow Foreign Secretary from 1987-1992.