THE United States has a duty to leave behind peace, not chaos, when troops are finally withdrawn from Iraq, an Iraqi bishop said.
“We desire, we ask, and we scream for peace and security,” Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Baghdad said in an interview with Vatican Radio on August 19.
The last of the US combat troops left Iraq earlier this month, formally ending Operation Iraqi Freedom. About 50,000 US troops will remain in Iraq until the end of 2011 to continue training and assisting Iraqi security forces.
Bishop Warduni said war did nothing but destroy everything.
“There are no jobs, there are car bombs, kamikaze attacks and other acts of violence. If foreign troops leave, they have a duty to leave peace and security behind them,” he said.
He also expressed concern about the political deadlock between Iraqi leaders who have not been able to form a government since parliamentary elections in March.
“It’s very difficult to live somewhere where there is no law and no government,” he said, adding that terrorist elements have been taking advantage of the lack of a stable central authority.
“The terrorists come and go as they please.”
Overturning the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein in order to put democracy in its place did not work, the Iraqi bishop said.
“Democracy needs to be taught, it needs to be planted, not imported,” he said. He compared life in Iraq under Saddam as like living “in a huge jail”.
“And what happens when a prison is suddenly thrown open?” he asked.
It was like a dam that opens without warning and unleashed huge waves of destruction, he said.
The only way for Iraq to begin anew was for all sides to set aside their partisan interests and focus on what was best for Iraq as a whole, he said.
The country needed to create a strong, stable government that enforced the law, he said, and Iraqis needed the assistance of the whole world “to help snuff out the wars”.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s new ambassador to the Vatican Habbeb Mohammed Hadi Ali al-Sadr said once Iraqi forces were able to guarantee greater security, then normalcy and the rebuilding of the nation can begin with help, co-operation and investments from Western countries.
The ambassador spoke at a July 14 press event in Rome.
The Iraqi Government has been looking for ways to work with the Vatican and has expressed hope for a visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Iraq, he said.
One Vatican source, however, told Catholic News Service on August 20 that a papal visit was very unlikely, especially given the precarious security in the region.
Mr al-Sadr said the Government has taken steps to preserve Iraq’s Christian heritage and culture.
Every year about a dozen men were sent to Rome to further their education as priests, and the country wanted to promote religious tourism, specifically a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Abraham in Ur, he said.
The ambassador, who met with Pope Benedict on July 2 when he presented his diplomatic credentials in a private audience, said he asked the Pope to urge Christians who have fled the country to return to Iraq.
He said Iraqi Christians had an important role to play in the cultural, technological and economic progress of the country.
“Iraq, in its revival, cannot do it without them,” he said.
To help facilitate their return, he said the Government was committed to finding them employment, providing land on which to build a home and offering the equivalent to $1300 (US) in Iraqi currency.
There is no campaign of “religious extermination” against Christians because, if there were, Christians would be the only ones facing attacks, he said.
“The terrorists attack all Iraqis indiscriminately,” he said.
Mr al-Sadr said terrorist elements were coming from outside of Iraq, and they only added Christians to their hit lists because an act of terror against Christians got more media attention than killing Muslims.
In this way, “without realising it, the mass media and Western organisations have supported the terrorists’ ploy,” he said.
