Posted on: Saturday, February 1, 2003

Vatican assails Italian official, possible war in Iraq

By Victor L. Simpson
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican criticized Italy's defense minister yesterday for having questioned the church's opposition to a possible U.S.-led war on Iraq.

In an unusual criticism of an individual official, the Vatican's daily newspaper L'Osservatore Romano labeled "a little surprising" remarks by Defense Minister Antonio Martino's that there might be "wisdom" to a preventive war against Baghdad. The newspaper implied Martino did not have the wisdom needed to be defense minister.

Martino made the remarks on Thursday as Italian troops headed to Afghanistan. When asked to comment on the Vatican's opposition to a preventive war against Baghdad, Martino asked what the alternative was: "Should we wait until terrorism takes thousands more lives? Isn't there more wisdom in trying to prevent catastrophes from taking place?"

The Iraq crisis has produced particularly sharp comments from the Vatican, as well as the first major disagreement between the Vatican and the Bush administration, which has sought to court Catholic voters.

The U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, James Nicholson, has held several meetings with Vatican officials on the Iraq issue. But he recently acknowledged "they were not convinced there is sufficient justification" for going to war.

Top Vatican officials have contended for weeks that there is no moral or legal ground for an attack, even if Iraq has stored weapons of mass destruction.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state, changed tack Wednesday, saying the Vatican hoped to convince the United States that a war against Iraq isn't worth "irritating a billion of Islamics."

"We want to say to America: Is it worth it to you? Won't you have, afterward, decades of hostility in the Islamic world?"

Pope John Paul II also opposed the 1991 Gulf War, fought by a U.S.-led coalition after Iraq invaded Kuwait, and became a rallying point in Italy for opponents of the war.

Nicholson is arranging meetings in mid-February among Vatican officials and Michael Novak, a prominent conservative American Catholic, to defend the U.S. position on Iraq.

Nicholson said the pope would be given advance warning of an attack on Iraq, if possible.

The spat with Italy's defense minister came as Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was returning from a White House meeting with President Bush.

In a statement, Sembler said he hoped the show of unity would convince Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to reveal his weapons of mass destruction. "If he does not, the civilized, peace-loving world cannot afford the price of inaction," the statement said.