Plan to beat Saddam would avert war

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post

President Bush welcomes Cardinal Pio Laghi, Pope John Paul II's envoy, in a meeting at the White House about the possible war with Iraq. A group that backs a six-point plan to defeat Saddam Hussein without war has asked for a meeting with Bush. Associated Press

In a significant shift for the religious anti-war movement, the church leaders said they feared that a U.S. invasion of Iraq was imminent and that the only way to stop it was to put forward concrete alternatives.

"We're not just saying 'No' to war. We're not just saying, 'Do nothing.' We're saying, 'Here's a third way,' " said Jim Wallis, editor of the evangelical journal Sojourners and a member of the group.

In recent weeks, many war protesters have called for intensified U.N. weapons inspections rather than military force to disarm Iraq. But the religious leaders' plan goes further, advocating Saddam's removal and putting leading figures in the anti-war movement on record in favor of many of the Bush administration's policy goals, if not its methods.

The first point in the group's plan is establishing a U.N. tribunal to indict Saddam for crimes against humanity, with the aim of removing the Iraqi president and his Ba'ath Party from power.

Bishop John B. Chane, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, said the church leaders wanted to make clear that they agree with President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that "regime change is imperative" in Iraq. "But," he said, "we don't believe that all of the avenues available to achieve that goal have truly been explored."

The other five points in the plan are: "coercive disarmament" through more aggressive U.N. weapons inspections; planning for a post-Saddam government run temporarily by the United Nations, rather than by a U.S military occupation; an immediate injection of humanitarian aid for the Iraqi people, with U.N. forces protecting deliveries, if necessary; recommitment to a "road-map" for establishing a Palestinian state by 2005; and reinvigorating the U.S.-led campaign against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

Chane said the commitment to a Palestinian state was included because it would defuse "the view of many people in the Middle East that this is a 21st century Christian crusade against Islam."

Wallis acknowledged that the plan does not explain how Saddam is to be removed from power. "When (Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosevic was indicted for war crimes, we didn't know how he would be removed either," he said.

In addition to Wallis and Chane, the authors of the plan are Clifton Kirkpatrick, the Stated Clerk, or chief ecclesiastical officer, of the Presbyterian Church (USA); Melvin Talbert, the ecumenical officer of the United Methodist Council of Bishops; and Dan Weiss, the immediate past general secretary of the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A.

Talbert previously appeared in TV ads criticizing the administration's march toward war, and all five members of the group have been active in Win Without War, a broad coalition of secular and religious groups that includes the National Council of Churches.

The five went as a delegation to meet with Blair on Feb. 18 in London to present the six-point plan, which they posted on the Sojourners Web site at sojo.net, and sent by letter to Bush and Blair, he said.

Wallis said the group also requested a meeting with Bush, who met this week with an envoy from Pope John Paul II, but has rebuffed requests for a meeting by the bishops of his own Methodist denomination.