Invasion of Iraq a grave moral failure

By RICHARD RANDERSON*

As the January 27 reporting date for the United Nations weapons inspection team in Iraq approaches, the rhetoric from President George W. Bush suggests that American military power will once more be unleashed on Baghdad, regardless of what the UN team reports.

Public support in the United States for such a strike has fallen from 67 per cent a few weeks ago to only 53 per cent.

Close behind Mr Bush is British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who, while lacking the support of both his own Labour Party and the public at large, is also displaying great enthusiasm for attacking Iraq, although preferring to do so with UN support.

Of the many relevant moral issues I select four. The first is whether such an attack is justified, and on what grounds.

I am not expert in military or political strategy but to date there is scant evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Even if evidence emerges, it is a moot point whether such weapons constitute a greater threat to other nations than, say, those of North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel or even the US itself. Additionally, a pre-emptive strike pushes far beyond the boundaries of international convention.

Second, even if some major threat to the world is discovered by the UN inspection team, is a military assault of the proportions now envisaged likely to achieve its purpose?

No shortage of firepower was applied to Baghdad and other parts of Iraq in the Gulf War started by the elder President Bush in 1990, yet 13 years later the US is faced with a largely unchanged situation.

Short of subjecting Iraq to American rule, Iraqi politics (and those of many other nations) remain somewhat impervious to the political wishes of the US.

Nor has the unprecedented allied assault on Afghanistan succeeded in eliminating Osama bin Laden or the al Qaeda network. Taleban rule has been overthrown but whether the new regime is likely to prove any more stable is debatable.

In terms of global terrorism, events since September 11, 2001, have shown that it knows no boundaries, has multiple strategies and can operate in a guerrilla mode that is immune to military firepower.

If terrorism could be confined to the caves of Tora Bora in the Afghan mountains, a giant missile might deal with it, but terrorism is not like that. Since September 11 it has appeared as anthrax in envelopes, as explosive in a shoe on a transatlantic airliner, as a car bomb outside a Bali nightclub, an explosion in an African hotel, or in the ricin alert in England.

What such realities indicate is that high-tech military weaponry, no matter how expansive, is poorly equipped to deal with foreign regimes or ubiquitous terrorism.

The need for military defence systems is a strategic reality, but the costly and ineffective deployment of military muscle lacks any basis in morality, especially when such deployment causes a huge loss of human life.

Which brings us to the third point, the central and overwhelming immorality of the loss of innocent lives in foreign countries. The death of 3212 people in the US on September 11 sent shockwaves through the Western world, as to a lesser extent did the Bali bombing. The loss of innocent lives of people like us, whose lifestyles are familiar, who are members of our network of family members and friends, grieves us personally and deeply.

By contrast, the loss of equally innocent lives of people in Afghanistan, Iraq or other parts of the world unknown to and remote from Western circles goes unreported and unlamented.

Yet we do know that more than 5000 civilian lives were lost in Afghanistan in the post-September 11 allied military assault. Although the US has provided $US600 million in aid to Afghanistan, that sum is minute compared with the estimated $15 billion military cost of the assault itself.

The post-1990 Gulf War figures for Iraq are even more horrifying. Official UN figures record the death of more than one million people in Iraq as a result of malnutrition, contaminated water and the lack of basic medical supplies. Of that number, 700,000 were children.

World Health Organisation figures for the same period show a six-fold increase in child leukaemia, the result of depleted uranium residues from American missiles. Inflicting further doses of death and disease on ordinary people takes on Holocaust proportions, and is morally bankrupt.

The fourth moral consideration relates to the greater contribution to peace to be made by investing in housing, health, food, clean water, education and jobs for poorer foreign nations, and for poorer members of our own. The human aid/military discrepancy in Afghanistan is completely overshadowed by the estimated $100 billion to $200 billion the assault on Iraq will cost.

It was also announced before Christmas that the US plans a $17.5 billion star wars defence system, which will be of little value given the guerrilla nature of terrorism.

The overseas aid flows of Western nations are peanuts by comparison. The US gives $10 billion (0.1 per cent of its gross national income) a year, Britain gives $4.5 billion (0.32 per cent), Australia $1 billion (0.27 per cent), and New Zealand $113 million (0.25 per cent). The agreed international target is 0.7 per cent of gross national income. The US has announced it will increase its overseas aid to $15 billion (0.15 per cent) in the next few years.

Two thousand years ago Jesus told his followers: "From those to whom much is given, much will be required." Forty-two years ago, another American President, John Kennedy, gave expression to those words by starting a Peace Corps whereby young Americans might engage in humanitarian projects in Third World nations.

Were such a spirit to be adopted as the heart of national policy, and magnified to a scale which eclipsed military preoccupations, it would do much to lay the foundations of global security and well-being.

The US and its allies have a capacity for leadership on the world stage which is unprecedented in modern times. To allow such an opportunity to be squandered through military adventurism is the gravest of moral failures.

* Richard Randerson is dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell and assistant Anglican bishop of Auckland.

Herald feature: Iraq