National Council of Churches, Growing Portion of Public, Want Iraq Withdrawal

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The number of Americans who support President Bush’s Iraq policy is in free fall, with the National Council of Churches part of a small but growing movement pushing for a specific exit strategy and timetable for withdrawal. A Tuesday (June 21) CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey found that 59 percent of […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The number of Americans who support President Bush’s Iraq policy is in free fall, with the National Council of Churches part of a small but growing movement pushing for a specific exit strategy and timetable for withdrawal.

A Tuesday (June 21) CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey found that 59 percent of the American people oppose the war in Iraq, compared with 39 percent who favor it _ a sharp change from March when the country was evenly divided (47 percent in favor, 47 percent opposed).


This is the first time that a majority has expressed opposition to the war, although earlier this month, another Gallup poll found 56 percent saying it was not worth going to war.

The new poll findings could provide an impetus for the fledgling movement demanding a more public exit strategy and a timetable for withdrawing the 140,000 U.S. troops who make up the bulk of the American-led coalition forces in Iraq.

Last week, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers led by Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., and Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, introduced legislation calling for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal.

Support for the legislation came immediately from the National Council of Churches, the ecumenical agency of 32 Protestant and Orthodox denominations.

“The development of an exit strategy for Iraq is long overdue,” said the Rev. Bob Edgar, NCC general secretary. “It is time for the administration to inform the American people as to when we will leave this war-torn country.”

While the Jones-Abercrombie resolution is unlikely to gather much political steam in the immediate future, it and the falling poll numbers reflect growing unease among both politicians and the public over the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.

The unease is fueled by growing American casualties _ more than 1,700 dead and 12,000 wounded to date.


In addition, the release of the so-called “Downing Street Memos,” which some opponents of the war hope is the “smoking gun” that will turn Americans against the war, has made it more difficult for Bush to make his case for the war.

The most discussed of the memos _ the minutes of a July 22, 2002, British government meeting _ says U.S. intelligence was being “fixed” around an already determined policy to go to war against Iraq for “regime change” rather than to root out weapons of mass destruction.

Last week, two dozen House Democrats, joined by antiwar groups, held a hearing on the memo, named after the street that is the official residence of the British prime minister.

“If these disclosures are true,” said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., “they establish a prima facie case of going to war under false pretenses.” Conyers is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

Bush and other administration officials, however, reject withdrawal talk.

“We will complete the mission, and the world will be better off for it,” Bush said Monday, assuring families of soldiers who have died in Iraq that the U.S. is “not going to allow their mission to go in vain.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, asked about the Jones-Abercrombie proposal, said June 16 it would send the wrong signal to Iraqi insurgents battling the U.S.-led occupation.


“This message (a timetable) would say to the terrorists: `All you have to do is wait until that day when our troops leave and then you can start carrying out those attacks and just hold out,”’ he said.

The administration’s announced policy is that there can be no withdrawal of U.S. troops until Iraqi troops and police are trained to handle the insurgency on their own.

At the Pentagon, however, the poll numbers are of concern to some senior military officials.

“It is concerning that our public isn’t as supportive as perhaps they once were,” Marine Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, director of operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, told the Los Angeles Times on June 17. “We’d like, I believe, to try and reverse those figures and start the trend back the other direction.”

Jones, a Republican who has been described as a man of deep Catholic faith, said the United States has “done as much as we can do in Iraq” and it is time “to take a fresh look at where we are and where we are going.”

The NCC, along with most mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic religious leaders, including Pope John Paul II, was an early and vocal opponent of the war. Most religious leaders argued that a pre-emptive war against Iraq that was not a last resort was morally wrong and violated the longstanding tenets of just war theory to which the Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant bodies adhere.


Edgar, in a recent op-ed piece written with Joe Volk, executive director of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, and Jim Winkler, general secretary of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, said it was of the “utmost importance” for Congress to make a timetable official.

“A declaration would ease growing concerns about U.S. imperial ambitions in the region and fears that the U.S. desires to secure the region’s oil fields against the growing energy appetites of China and India,” the three religious leaders said.

MO DEA RB END RNS

Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for file photos of Edgar.

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