wfn.org | Saddam Hussein Must be Disarmed - Without War, Agree NCC, European

["Nat'l Council of Churches" <nccc_usa@ncccusa.org>]

Churches

National Council of Churches
NCC Media Contact: 212-870-2227
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Saddam Hussein Must be Disarmed -- Without War, Agree NCC, European Churches

March 7, 2003, NEW YORK CITY - National Council of Churches leaders, in
Moscow March 4-5, continued to press their conviction that Saddam Hussein
can be disarmed without war. Along with their hosts from the Russian
Orthodox Church, they met with a Kremlin foreign relations advisor, a deputy
foreign minister and Yevgeny M. Primakov, a former foreign minister and
prime minister, who recently had visited Iraq.

"We agreed that Saddam Hussein does have to disarm," said the Rev. Dr.
Robert W. Edgar, NCC General Secretary, in Moscow.  "We agreed that the U.N.
inspections are working, and that they need more time. If more inspectors
are needed, put them in. If they find weapons, they should destroy them."

Accompanying Dr. Edgar were the Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, Ecumenical
Officer of the Orthodox Church in America and a former NCC president, and
the Rev. Dr. Keith Clements, General Secretary of he Conference of European
Churches.

The Moscow mission was the fifth organized by the NCC to member countries of
the Security Council in partnership with the countries denominational and
ecumenical leaders.  Earlier delegations met with German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder in Berlin, British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London, the French
Foreign Ministry in Paris and with Pope John Paul II and the Vice President
of Italy's Parliament in Rome.

February 26, top-level ecumenical representatives from Europe returned the
visits, coming to Washington, D.C., to call for a peaceful solution to the
conflict with Iraq.
But President Bush has yet to respond to a January 30 letter organized by
the NCC and now signed by 50 U.S. church leaders - including 21 United
Methodist Bishops - asking urgently for a meeting before he decides to
launch war on Iraq.

In recent weeks, the NCC also has co-sponsored two prayer services exploring
the connection between war and poverty - January 20 at the Washington
National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and March 2 at Grace Cathedral in
San Francisco - and is supporting a program of prayer and advocacy for a
peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis.

The NCC also has placed print ads opposing the war in The New York Times and
Roll Call, and sponsored a TV ad that featured United Methodist Bishop
Melvin Talbert, placing it on CNN and Fox cable channels in New York City
and Washington, D.C., and on Larry King Live.  See http://www.ncccusa.org

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