” “”They say the US attacks are against the terrorists, but how many innocents lose their lives every time? We hope this will not be another Falluja”. This is the wish of mgr. Shlemon Warduni, auxiliary bishop of the Chaldeian patriarchate in Baghdad, who repeats to SIR the priorities he considers essential to bring peace back to Iraq: “A stable government, the closing of frontiers to prevent terrorists coming in, food and infrastructures for everybody, taking weapons off civilians”. And, as soon as there is a “strong and stable government”, the withdrawal of the foreign troops. “We will thank them for bringing change, but we want peace, that we do not have now. This climate of insecurity spreads terror and Iraq has turned into hell”. Mgr. Warduni is in Rome over these days, along with other Iraqi bishops, to attend a meeting of Caritas internazionalis about the Iraqi emergency. “We want to live he stated at the meeting but to live we need peace. When he leave our homes, we do not know whether we will come back, because there are car bombs, kamikazes, abductions, the security cars kept under close surveillance, I have risked dying myself from gunfire. That’s why tension between Shiites and Sunnis is increasing, and churches and mosques are bombed”. According to mgr. Jean Benjamin Sleiman, Latin bishop of Baghdad and plenipotentiary commissioner, the massive US attack of these days is still a war, and “all that is a war, no matter if big or small, is dangerous and must be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, the situation is such that in these cases it’s not easy to be Manichean. It’s not right to let loose these fundamentalist and extremist groups. But it’s not right to risk killing innocents either. These are real dilemmas and you never know what the least evil”. (to be continued)” “
