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Cardinal urges humanitarian plan for Iraq |
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By Catholic News Service
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Wednesday, 11 August 2010 |
The ancient Christian communities that once thrived in Iraq “now face potential extinction,” said U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, urging the United States to develop a postwar plan to help Iraq resolve the humanitarian consequences of the seven-year war.
Residents mourn Iraqi Christian student Sandy Shabib during funeral services in Mosul, Iraq, last May 11. Bombers that day struck three buses carrying Christian university students on their way to classes. CNS photo / Reuters
The fact that U.S. combat forces are expected to leave by Sept. 1 “is good news for our American servicemen, their families and the nation,” the cardinal said. “But this departure should not be accompanied by a withdrawal of our support for the Iraqi people, particularly for the millions of displaced Iraqis.”
Concern for Christians
After Sept. 1, there will still be 50,000 Americans in Iraq — noncombat
troops — who will “help maintain the peace and support the Iraqi army
and police force,” the cardinal pointed out, but he said that as combat
forces leave, violence could increase against those who have been
displaced, including Christians.
The cardinal, who is the retired archbishop of Washington, made the
comments in a recent op-ed piece that appeared on PoliticsDaily.com. He
is a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on
Migration and Catholic Relief Services, the bishops’ overseas relief
and development agency.
Although the international community, led by the United States, has
provided basic assistance and resettled a small number of Iraq’s
refugees, he said, a long-term solution to such massive displacement
“has proven elusive.”
Many Iraqi families have been left stranded because they are afraid of
returning to Iraq and unable to permanently settle in their host
country, he explained.
Cardinal McCarrick said a postwar plan, such as the Marshall Plan that
restored Europe after World War II, should be developed in cooperation
with the Iraqi government and the international community to find
solutions for Iraqi refugees and displaced people.
Of special concern are Iraqi Christians and other minorities who he said
continue to be the targets of systematic violence. “Even now,”
Cardinal McCarrick wrote, “Christians continue to flee Iraq at levels
comparable to the rate near the beginning of the war, a deeply troubling
sign.”
Leaving a large number of displaced Iraqis unsettled within Iraq and
throughout the Middle East is a moral issue first, he said, but the
situation could potentially create long-term social and political
problems, hindering the ability of the United States to achieve other
important policy goals.
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