What has a Catholic priest to say about Iraq
Iraq, International, 2/18/1998

ArabicNews.com recently conducted an interview with Fr. Simon Harak, a Catholic priest who teaches ethics at Fairfield University in the US. Fr. Harak has been actively involved in opposing UN sanctions against Iraq, and had staged a hunger strike in protest of the sanctions shortly before he spoke with ArabicNews.com, and Fr. Harak said he was considering resuming the strike.

Fr. Harak also has contact with the grass-roots Voices in the Wilderness Christian organization, which recently sent a delegation to Iraq, including the group's leader, Kathy Kelly, to express solidarity with the Iraqi people.

Fr. Harak discussed with ArabicNews.com his view of the current crisis in Iraq over UN weapons inspections in light of US threats to use military force against Iraq if it fails to provide complete and unconditional access.

ArabicNews.com: How do you see the crisis?
SH: Much of it manufactured. It seems that the United States has a tremendous reluctance to do two things. First of all (address) the legitimate concerns of the Iraqi people and government that they have as a nation and second, any compromise situation that will allow both sides to be satisfied.

Once we aren't willing to do that, then the situation becomes inevitable as far as going to war is concerned. It won't be a war, it will be a massacre. The Iraqis have nothing with which to fight back.


ArabicNews.com: You were in Iraq recently, what did you see in Iraq? what was the extent of the suffering there?
You know, I've not led a sheltered life, but really nothing could prepare me for the real... it's appalling. You read the figures, you know 1.1 million and 1.2 million and 1.4 million, and you try to comprehend it, but you're watching and you see the effects of all of these deaths and you see the goodness of the people and how they're suffering not only inasmuch as they are dying but their loved ones are dying, and especially their children are dying. And they watch helplessly because we're preventing medicines and food from getting in, either because of the boycott itself or because we're killing the contracts in committee 986.

It becomes very difficult not only to watch the suffering, and the pain and death, not only to watch the other people who are dignified and wonderful people, watching them suffer over the death of their loved ones -- that's awful hard, but then knowing this isn't just a famine or an earthquake, this is something that's inflicted on these people. This is extraordinarily hard to bear.


ArabicNews.com: Please elaborate on your previous comments that the US wanted to cripple Iraq's productive capacity.

This is what our statements constantly are, to take away from them the capacity or the capability. Remember that in 1995, Rolf Ekeus, who was then the head of UNSCOM, the United Nations special commission, is certainly no friend of the Iraqis and lover of the Iraqi people. I don't think anybody could accuse him of that. He stated in 1995 that UNSCOM had found and destroyed all means of production for the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

So what now remains in the course of the next two-plus years is that they might at some point have the capacity. Well now, there are a couple of problems with that. The problem is that my high school...my people that know chemistry -- I don't -- but they say with little more than a high school chemistry set you could produce these kind of... the kind of anthrax or whatever it is that could be weapons of mass destruction. So that if we're going to try to keep the sanctions on until every possibility of producing these weapons has vanished, then they're going to be on forever, because the genie is out of the bottle, and it's not possible not to know how to do this because everybody knows how to do this.

In fact, when I spoke to the deputy director of UNSCOM, he said they have the capacity to do this like every other nation does. He was quite frank about it.

The second thing, of course, that is even more scary is that we are going to talk about capacity when we.. that somehow there is a person who knows how to do these things. So now the capacity extends even to people and so that's what becomes very frightening, as long as there are people who are capable of thinking about producing weapons of mass destruction, then they have the capability. So the sanctions will stay on until then, until when?


ArabicNews.com: Are you saying that's pretext for continuation of sanctions?

Of course.

Let me just remind you that on the 11th of November in 1997, there was an article in the NY Times quoting Gary Milholland. This is what he said: Even though the Iraqis no longer produce weapons of mass destruction, they have the capacity to do so, because their scientists are still alive and doing research.

He followed it up by saying -- and now I'm quoting him directly -- "You can't destroy weapons research and development unless you kill people."

So I mean it's clear what the story is, that you have to -- if we're ever going to think about destroying the capacity, then we have to think about destroying the people. This seems to be-- well, it's genocidal, and it's not something that's allowed under any description, certainly not of course Christian, certainly not of course Muslim, and certainly not according to international law. You cannot target civilians for some other purpose. It can't be done, but that's exactly what the sanctions are doing.

We would not have trouble, I don't think with a weapons embargo, but that's not what this is. This is a direct attack on the civilian population and we do have trouble with that. I hope everybody else does too.

Defeat is one thing, subjugation is something else. Compliance is one thing, humiliation is something else. Whatever the original intent of the sanctions were, they have now become weapons of mass destruction.

Previous Stories:
  Iraqi crisis reaches its most critical stage   (2/18/1998)
  Diplomats in Russia - France - China on Iraq   (2/14/1998)
  US outlines goals on Iraq, Congressional support wavering   (2/13/1998)

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search