Sir, - Few in the West doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is murderous and a threat to peace in the Middle East and the world. Many, therefore, will greet the Pope's intention to visit Iraq this December and meet Saddam (The Irish Times, August 27th) with dismay and say that perhaps his only excuse is his age and frailty.
In my view, it is one of the bravest and most statesmanlike acts of his long pontificate. Almost alone among world leaders he has criticised the brutal UN embargo on Iraq. When the sanctions were first imposed, Madeleine Albright, then US ambassador to the UN, was asked if the projected death of half-a-million Iraqi children was a price worth paying. She said it was.
The forecast proved to be correct. There is chronic malnutrition, half of Iraqis have no access to clean water, there is raw sewage, even in hospitals. This is a tragedy beside which genocide in Kosovo and the Turkish earthquake combined pale into insignificance. One US analyst, Phyllis Bennis, with 20 years' experience in the field, said: "When the US kills 200 children today and 200 children yesterday, and 200 children tomorrow, this is no longer a political issue, it's a moral one." But it is not just the US. All of us who fail to protest against this slaughter of the innocents are guilty.
John Paul's visit is not political. It is a religious and humanitarian gesture towards a people who are being unjustly punished for the sake of one man. Surely, before December, world leaders should join the Pope in trying to find a better way to end Iraq's isolation. Sacrificing hundreds of thousands of children is a crime calling to heaven for vengeance. - Yours, etc.,
Peter De Rosa, Ashford, Co Wicklow.