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Iraqi Christians make preparations for war Episcopal News Service Issue: Section: 2003-018-2 Posted: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 Like their compatriots, Chaldean Christians in Iraq are stockpiling food and fuel and preparing for the war threatening their country, an Iraqi archbishop told reporters on Tuesday. For the past month, they have also been gathering daily for prayer, 'hoping God will help us avoid a war,' Gabriel Kassab, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Basra, said at a news conference on Tuesday at the Geneva offices of the World Council of Churches. The archbishop was in Europe to urge the end of United Nations sanctions on Iraq and the prevention of a new war. Asked whether Christians in Iraq were afraid of being targeted by Muslims should a war break out, Kassab stressed that the communities lived in harmony. 'All of us are afraid. Christians are Iraqis just like Shi'ite Muslims, like Sunni Muslims,' the archbishop said, referring to the two Islamic groups in his country. 'We are afraid because we are Iraqi, and Iraq is targeted by this war. Christians are part of the Iraqi population.' No tension existed between Christians and Muslims in southern Iraq, said Kassab, noting the presence of local Muslim religious leaders at the inauguration of the Catholic cathedral a month ago. 'Of course, there are some small problems. These come from small Islamic groups that are highly radical.' Asked about the possible consequences of a war on average Iraqis, Kassab said: 'We will have to flee. People go where they find safety and security.' Christians account for roughly 3 per cent of Iraq's mainly Muslim population, or about 700,000 people. Approximately 70 per cent of them belong to the Chaldean church, which follows the ancient Chaldean rite but is in union with the Roman Catholic Church. The Christian population, which once stood at 5 per cent, has decreased in recent years due to emigration and to deaths in two military conflicts: the eight-year war between Iraq and Iran (1980-88) and the six-week Gulf War in 1991, Kassab told ENI after the news conference. 'It [the Gulf War] didn't last 42 days, but went on from 1991 to this day,' he told reporters. 'Every day American and British aircraft fly over our heads and they often bomb us and kill our people. This is true more particularly during the past two months.' More than a decade of sanctions, imposed by the United Nations because of Iraq's refusal to comply with 19 UN resolutions after the Gulf War, have taken a heavy toll on average Iraqis. 'The sanctions, the embargo on Iraq is a form of war on Iraq,' Kassab asserted. 'With sanctions, people are killed slowly, in a bad way.' Asked whether the churches in Iraq were doing anything to encourage the Iraqi government's compliance with UN resolutions on arms inspections in order to avoid war, Kassab said: 'Anything that is conducive to peace and serves the common good of society, we as a church are in favor of. But the government of Iraq itself has made it clear that it is willing to cooperate with UN resolutions.' Due to the wars and their aftermath, he said, people in the south of Iraq are facing new diseases that doctors are not able to identify and an increased number of miscarriages and birth defects. There are power cuts of up to 12 hours a day and a lack of clean drinking water. 'A bottle of clean drinking water is 30 times more expensive in Basra than the equivalent amount of petrol,' he said. Many young people are dropping out of school in order to do odd jobs to help their families survive. Hospitals have shortages of basic equipment, such as syringes, and 'most surgery is performed without anesthesia,' the archbishop reported. Basra now has many homeless people, 'something we didn't know before in Iraq,' he said. The church is responding, establishing a kindergarten in a poor neighborhood where it gives hundreds of children free breakfast and shoes so that they can walk to school. It has opened a computer training center for young people, a pharmacy to provide basic medicine and shelter in the archbishopric for about 20 families. The World Council of Churches, along with such regional ecumenical groups as the National Council of Churches in the United States and the Middle East Council of Churches, has in recent months issued warnings against pre-emptive military action against Iraq. The WCC has called for the lifting of sanctions, which they maintain are ineffective against the ruling regime and mainly harm poor civilians.       © 2004, The Episcopal Church, USA. Episcopal News Service content may be reprinted without permission as long as credit is given to ENS.