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Ambassador James Nicholson, who represented the Bush administration to the Vatican when the war in Iraq began seven years ago, has often told the story of hosting a delegation of Iraqi bishops in Rome shortly after the 2003 invasion. When Nicholson greeted the bishops at the steps of the ambassador's residence, as he tells the story, they said to him, "Thank you for liberating our country."
That may have been their sentiment seven years ago, but the bishops seem to be singing a different tune today as the U.S. withdraws its final contingents of combat troops.
The United States has "betrayed its duty to bring peace and security" to Iraq, according to Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Baghdad, in an interview on Friday with the Italian daily La Stampa. The Americans leave behind "an Iraq worse off than the one they found seven years ago," said Warduni, who's widely regarded as the most charismatic voice among the Iraqi bishops.
The following is an NCR translation of Warduni's interview with Giacomo Galeazzi of La Stampa.
Do you consider the war in Iraq a failure?
After toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein, the United States never achieved what they promised to the world. Now there's only rubble. We've become targets, we're afraid to even leave the house. The situation is worse for everyone, but especially for us Christians. The withdrawal of the United States is a disastrous flight from responsibility, which will multiply the atrocities and increase the instability even more.
What was your first thought on Obama's announcement that the soldiers will be withdrawn?
That the great saint Karol Wojtyla was right to condemn the war in Iraq. It created far more problems than it resolved. Given how it's ended up, it would have been better not to intervene. The recourse to force has simply meant destruction, without producing any benefit for the country. Economic profit was put at the center of everything, the protection of foreign interests, and not the defense of values, of conscience, and of the common good. Thus in the streets of our cities there's no trace of democracy, only fear and violence. We're paying an extremely high price in blood and terror.
What hasn't worked in these years?
The United States thought exclusively about their own financial interests, and no one worried about the welfare of Iraq and the Iraqis. We're suffering from the absence of a stable government. Without real authority and an effective sovereign, chaos rules. With car bombs, kamikazes, kidnappings and clan-related violence, we've become the cradle of every kind of terrorism. Bands of assassins move around as they want, inside and outside the borders. There's never been even the most minimal concrete commitment to teaching true democracy, to help it grow and mature in the souls of our people. The democratic spirit can't be imposed, nor exported through war. Today, the reasons for the Vatican's "˜No' to the armed intervention in Iraq are tragically clear to everyone. Before there was a dictatorship, but the people lived fairly well. Today there's total insecurity. No one is certain of being able to return home safely at night. Every night, there's some new insignia for terrorists.
Is the fate of Iraq now returning to your hands?
Only on paper. The majority of Iraqis want a government in which all parties collaborate for peace and reconstruction. Up to now, however, there's been neither collaboration nor reconciliation. What have prevailed instead are personal interests and factions. Religious and ethnic fanaticism has grown. Stability is possible only on the shared basis that everyone together seeks the good of all Iraqis. The foreign troops are fleeing without having built a shared home on a solid basis. We appeal to the United Nations and to whoever is of good will: Do not abandon us, or it will end in disaster, increasing the insecurity of the whole world. Without help, we'll all be overwhelmed by the collapse of a devastated system without foundation.
Obama had two years to change the dialogue and he did absolutely nothing to bring healing to that country. He just continued what Bush did before him.
What President George Bush, a self-described Christian, gave the Middle East was the end of significant Christian presence in the Holy Land and surrounding countries. Look at their decline in numbers since Bush became president. It is in the millions.
If more Catholics followed the faith, earnestly prayed daily, read their Bibles daily, went to Mass regularly, confessed their sins, and lived the Christian life, then the the government would reflect those values as well because they would vote morality rather than convenience. It is amazing to me that so many Catholics are Democrats. I am not saying that they have to be Republicans by any means, but at the very least they should not be members of the party of death. The war in Iraq will be a blessing in the future. I brought my Iraqi business partner and his family here to America and that is how I helped. It is because of the USA that he and his family are free. Let us not confuse the political with the religious objectives of the USA.
This sounds like those Latin American bishops who in the past supported dictators because the dictators sheltered those clergy who didn't make waves. The Iraqi bishops miss the terror-filled good old days of Saddam Hussain.
What did the Iraqis expect us to do. Did they want us to invade them or give them a chance to rule their country themselves. From what I have read and heard about the country, they did not even try to revolt and save their country from Hussein. Yet they want someone else todo it for them. As for their lack of getting along, then they can just fight to the death, as that is all they have know for centuries. As Christ said,"let the dead bury the dead" Amen
With the support of Rome, the people of Iraq were a means to an end for the Bush administration, takng the British Commonwealth with them. The public delicing of Saddam Hussein, once welcomed with open arms, warts and all again for expediency, was a digraceful act for a civilized country, not to mention atrocities others were coerced into taking part in. No wonder Tony Blair is contibuting the proceeds of his book to the injured personel. His Baptism would be a sure why of giving himself a clean slate and new beginning; and as for the bishops, it's a little late for them to change their tune and in retrospect that's something that isn't new.
Ah, well. This type of lowlife middle eastern scum which terrorizes others and runs with gangs has always existed there, excellency. Your dictator who we caught, tried, and executed was merely the biggest thug in the area and was a genuine threat to "stability" (hah!) in the Middle East! Heck, even though he boasted about having WMDs and used chemical and bio weapons on the Kurds, and the Iranians......of course he never would use them against us or against our allies in that area, or disrupt the global economy (except when he lit up thousands and thousands of oil fields. So, will those people ever get it together and get along? I doubt it. They never have before. To blame America is simply a convenient excuse for that perpetual turmoil.
So why has the former Ambassador waited until the "dastardly deed" is done to speak out! Why has no one in the Church who knew about this travesty spoken out so that American Catholics could be informed about this "betrayal" when something "political" might have been done about it! Are the Iraqi Catholics being used as a pawn perhaps in a greater "partisan political struggle"? God help the poor souls who knew the ugly truth but betrayed Christ in their Iraq brothers by keeping silent until it wa too late! Someday they will have to answer to Mary Our Queen for what they have done to her beloved Son! I do not envy them!
In international law, the war did succeed in removing the threats to the peace which Iraq had been responsible for. It forced Iraq to execute in full the international legal consequences of the crime of aggression committed against Kuwait in 1990, and of the crime of genocide against the Kurds completed in September 1998. It made sure that criminals were brought to justice.
Is it possible that the violence which was unleashed in Iraq after the invasion was a divine punishment on the people because of their false religion?
Is it not time for the Church to repudiate dhimmmitude and set about converting the Muslims to Christianity?
While Obama is busy bowing down to the the Saudi King and praising Islam and Muslims everywhere, he turns a blind eye to the plight of the battered and nearly annihilated Christian people in Iraq. What greater hypocrisy is there than this? While he is lavishing all sorts of expensive Ramadan dinners in the White House, while he continuously and persistently belittles Christianity in almost every speech in which he touches upon religion, he seems to do nothing else but promote Islam (who knows what his motives are, maybe it's because he's Muslim or maybe he's just praising Islam because he sold himself to the 'other master.' In any case, his record so far has been nothing else but anti-Christian. Where's the liberal left now, especially among those who call themselves Catholic?
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