In a letter to De Hoop Scheffer, Dutch Foreign Minister, the president of Pax Christi in Holland, Bishop Adrian van Luyn asks to know why the first Balkenende government gave its political, even if not military, support to the war against Iraq. News of the Pax Christi intervention was recently released by Katholiek Nederland, the Catholic website of the Netherlands. The letter, signed not only by Bishop Van Luyn, but also by Hans Kruissen, director general of the humanitarian association Cordaid and by Ineke Bakker, secretary of the Dutch Council of the Churches, reminds the Foreign Minister of his admission that “the blocking of the terrible capabilities of Saddam Hussein in the field of weapons of mass destruction could have prevented the use of force” and also mentions, to back up doubts about the legitimacy of military action, the report of the Pentagon and the statements of US assistant secretary of state for defense Paul Wolfowitz, according to whom “oil was a strong argument for the war and it was only for bureaucratic reasons that the emphasis was placed on weapons of mass destruction”. These statements, according to Pax Christi, cast doubt on the effective Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction.
