(ENI, ENS, Anglican Church of Canada) Many churches and religious organisations around the world last week publicly registered their opposition to a military strike against Iraq.

Some religious leaders have also accused the US of hypocrisy for singling out Iraq while not taking action against other countries, including Israel, which are widely believed to have weapons of mass destruction.

Last month, a fact-finding delegation sent to Iraq by the World Council of Churches warned against renewed military intervention and strongly recommended that churches around the world urge their governments to oppose threats of military action to force Iraq to comply with UN Security Council demands.

The delegation also said that the sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations seriously violated the human rights of large sectors of the Iraqi population by denying them the rights to adequate food, clothing, housing, medical care, social services and employment.

But Harald Mueller, director of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (HSFK), disagreed with the WCC. He told a Swiss Protestant news agency Reformierter Pressedienst (RPD): "If Iraq cannot be forced to stop its weapons programme, then the way is clear for other countries such as Libya or North Korea to develop biological and chemical weapons."

But many statements from churches, including those in the Middle East, show that the Christian community world-wide overwhelmingly shares the World Council of Churches' opposition to a military strike against Iraq.

Churches in the Middle East

Last week, the executive director of the Jerusalem office of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), Harry Hagopian, appealed to the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, to "intercede in this showdown and affirm the lofty ideals and principles for which the UN has laboured tirelessly ever since its inception". Annan is expected to arrive in Baghdad in the next few days in a final bid to defuse the confrontation over weapons inspections.

Hagopian warned that a military confrontation in Iraq "would devastate all the inhabitants of the region - Arabs and Israelis, Jews, Christians and Muslims alike".

In a statement issued on 4 February, the Middle East Council of Churches said that while it recognised "the potential threat of nuclear and biological weapons, and other weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq may possess, it is also known that other states in the region and throughout the world possess such weapons, yet are not subjected to sanctions".

"The MECC does not condone the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but calls for a consistent international standard for the prevention of such proliferation, and rejects the hypocritical stance which singles out Iraq."

MECC called "upon all parties involved to actively and wholeheartedly seek a negotiated solution based on diplomacy and not violence, peace and not war".

The Anglican Church in Australia

Archbishop Keith Rayner, head of the Anglican Church of Australia, called on the Australian government - which has promised to commit troops to the Middle East in the event of military action - to do whatever it could to avoid military conflict in Iraq. He warned that military action "might escalate into a far wider conflagration in the Middle East", although he said that the need to keep deadly weapons away from a ruthless dictator such as Saddam was also an important consideration.

Churches in the USA

In a letter to US president Bill Clinton, the leaders of the National Council of Churches (NCC), which has 34 of the biggest US Protestant and Orthodox churches as members, called on him to "pursue a humanitarian, not a military, option" in the confrontation with Saddam Hussein.

The NCC leaders pointed out that their organisation was not a pacifist body and that "historically many of our churches have affirmed the defensive use of military power and even its deterrent value in a sinful world". But they added: "We have, however, never supported its 'first strike' use. We cannot support it now."

They gave their backing to an appeal by Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, who chairs the US Catholic Bishops' International Policy Committee, who has said that the use of military force "could pose an undue risk to an already suffering civilian population".

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Revd Frank T. Griswold signed the NCC statement. The Presiding Bishop said that he endorses the NCC policy and encourages "drawing Iraq back to the family of nations through aggressive relief to the Iraqi people, rather than continuing a policy of isolation."

"Some time ago I came across an editorial note in a small collection of Muslim prayers," he wrote. "Muhammad Kamil Husain published in 1954 a remarkable study of the arrest and suffering of Jesus and what he saw as the significance of Good Friday for the Muslim . . .It studies the dilemma of Jesus' disciples after Gethsemane, and the chapter ends as follows: ''They called upon God in these words: O God, guide those who preside over human affairs that they . . . do not inflict on others wrongs that are immediate and concrete for the sake of something supposedly and ultimately good for society. For this is the origin of man's tragic trouble and the source of the evil within him'"

"Would that all Muslims, all Jews and Christians might pray this prayer with fervor and understanding: all Muslims, all Jews and all Christians who worship one God," the Presiding Bishop said.

The Presiding Bishop also noted that his endorsement is based on a number of sources, including Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey's recent statement calling for a diplomatic solution while urging the Iraqi government to accept the UN mandates as a necessary contribution to a peaceful outcome. The Archbishop of Canterbury's statement was commended by the Episcopal Church's Executive Council meeting last week in San Jose, California.

The Primate of Canada

The Primate of Canada, Archbishop Michael Peers, says the classic Christian criteria for evaluating war do not justify military intervention in Iraq. The Archbishop's statement reads as follows:

Once again it appears possible that Canada may join with the United States in a punitive attack on Iraq.

In similar circumstances seven years ago I issued a moral reflection on that action based upon the classic Christian criteria for determining the justifiability of a particular war, and judged that by those criteria such aggressive intervention was not justified then.

I believe that this judgment still stands in the present circumstances and I urge continued diplomatic efforts towards resolution.

One of the traditional criteria requires that the use of force be proportional to the situation. The proposed military intervention arises from the Iraqi government's continued defiance of United Nations resolutions. Of course, the most satisfactory outcome would be compliance by the Iraqi government with the United Nations resolutions. However, South Africa's defiance during the apartheid years was met with sanctions, not force, and Israel's defiance of UN resolutions about the occupation of Palestinian territory has never been challenged.

Another criterion calls for discrimination in the use of force, that is, the protection of non-combatants. No guarantees in this area have been offered, and the evidence suggests that Iraqi civilians and civil society will suffer. As well, the United States refuses to rule out the use of nuclear weapons, a gesture which raises yet another spectre.

Another criterion calls for a reasonable chance of success. The 1991 war may have succeeded in a military sense but did not produce a more peaceful or more stable Middle East, nor did it end the Iraqi violations of the UN resolutions, and I believe the present action has no better prospects for long-term peaceful resolution.

I appreciate that the Canadian contribution is minimal, but I am nonetheless gravely concerned that the lives of our military personnel are being put at risk in an unjustifiable action.

I find it impossible to see how long-term peace building and the empowering of the Iraqi people to improve their own circumstances are being served by this exercise.

I want to associate myself with the concerns expressed by the World Council of Churches in this regard, and to assure all involved, beginning with our military personnel and including all other potential victims, of my prayers for their safety.

And finally, I urge members of the Anglican Church of Canada to continue in their prayers for a just and peaceable outcome in this tense situation.