BRITAIN: The Catholic Primate of England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, has said that all conditions for a morally justifiable war on Iraq have yet to be met.
"It does seem that the conditions for a pre-emptive strike are not there," he said.
He also felt that the recent dossier against President Saddam Hussein presented to the House of Commons by the British Prime Minister was not strong enough to alter that position.
Speaking on a brief visit to Dublin the Cardinal insisted, however, that President Saddam must destroy those weapons of mass destruction he possessed.
Unilateral violence against Iraq represented a major threat to global security, he said, and the millions that would be spent on such an attack would be better used on relieving world poverty or for Third World development, which of themselves represented as much a threat to global security as alleged of Saddam Hussein.
As Christians it was up to all to ensure that every possibility [of a solution to the problem of Iraq] was explored outside war.
At a recent meeting in Sarajevo he had been unanimously supported when he told a conference of presidents of 34 Catholic bishops in Europe that the international community should exercise great pressure on Saddam to force him to disarm, using all possible means to reach this end without starting an war."
