Iraq invasion will threaten national security, strain US World standing

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Rep. David Bonior, D-Michigan, said today that an invasion of Iraq will only further threaten national security by splintering the broad international coalition against terrorism and fueling more extremist passions against America.

The congressman -- who returned Tuesday from a five-day trip to Iraq -- also said little discussion is being devoted to the humanitarian crisis facing innocent Iraqi civilians following years of economic sanctions -- a challenge America will have a moral responsibility to deal with, regardless of a regime change. 

"I think we have to be very cognizant of what war will unleash on the world," Bonior said. "There are important questions about the safety of our people in America as well as justice abroad.  The world is a very fragile place today and going to war threatens everything.  We strike first -- what kind of message does that send to India, Pakistan and other nations in South Asia?  It will break up our coalition with Arab nations that we need in the effort against Al-Queda.  I am very disheartened by the fact that people have not been addressing the implications that war will have on our broader national security concerns."

Bonior and U.S. Reps. Jim McDermott, D-Washington., and U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-California, were part of a delegation that traveled to Iraq to press upon the Iraqis the need for unrestricted, unfettered UN weapons inspections and to gain insight into the dangerous implications a unilateral, preemptive strike would have on U.S. national interests.   The trip was organized by the Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq, a project of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, and LIFE for Relief and Development, a Michigan charity organization licensed by the United States and the United Nations to administer aid in Iraq.

The group met with United Nations and Iraqi officials, repeatedly stressing the need for the weapons inspections.   They also visited many sites - including the largest children's cancer ward, a water filtration plant and an oil-for-food distribution site - and talked with numerous Iraqi citizens about the "truly disturbing humanitarian problems" in the country, Bonior said.

"The Iraqi people suffer under a brutal dictatorship and they suffer under the most inhumane sanctions regime ever put in place.  We must act to alleviate the anguish," Bonior said.  "To ignore it or worse, to begin another war, will only deepen the mistrust of America and further complicate the effort to root out terrorism."