c. 1998 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Pope John Paul II, informed during the night of the first wave of the U.S.-led attack on Iraq, called Thursday for an end to”this aggression”and urged the international community to help find a just solution.

The pope was perhaps the most prominent religious leader to weigh in on the issue, but others both criticized and supported the pre-Ramadan attack which aims, as Secretary of Defense William Cohen said, to”degrade Saddam Hussein’s ability to make and use weapons of mass destruction.” In the United States, a number of Jewish organizations voiced support for the attack while Arab-American and Muslim groups voiced opposition.

At the Vatican, spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the Roman Catholic pontiff, who has received private U.S. briefings in the past, was not informed in advance that missiles were being targeted on Iraq. He said the Vatican learned of the attack”through the news agencies.” The pope was”informed during the night,”Navarro-Valls said.”As always when innocent lives are lost, his dominant feeling was of deep sadness.”The Holy See hopes that this aggression ends as soon as possible and international order is re-established,”the spokesman said.

Although neither the pope nor his spokesman criticized Washington and London directly for launching the attack, the use of the word aggression indicated the strength of the Vatican’s opposition to the action.

Navarro-Valls refused to speculate on whether the pope’s displeasure would color his scheduled meeting with President Clinton Jan. 26 during a visit to St. Louis.”No one can anticipate the contents of the pope’s private talks,”he said.

In words Vatican sources said he added only this morning to his talk at a ceremony in which he received the credentials of new ambassadors to the Vatican from Guyana, Nigeria, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, the pope said it is up to the international community to help find a peaceful solution.”Peace is also threatened once again in the Middle East,”the pope said.”Reconciliation, founded on dialogue, justice and the right of every man and every people to live in security and the recognition of his own state, is more urgent than ever.”It is the task especially of the international community to encourage solutions that lead to harmony and the renewal of community life and to assume its responsibility for avoiding diversions that could make innocent victims of peoples.” Asked what the pope will do to contribute to peace in Iraq, Navarro-Valls said,”He will do what he has always done: speak clearly and strongly, pray a great deal and look for ways to help to re-establish international order.” Former Polish President Lech Walesa said following a private audience with the pope that”every drop of blood spilled makes the holy father suffer.” In the United States, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, B’nai B’rith International, and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations each issued statements supporting the strikes.

The Conference of Presidents, an umbrella group of 55 Jewish organizations, said it had written Clinton”expressing solidarity”for the action and said Hussein’s”repeated defiance and obstruction has made clear he has no intention of allowing the implementation of United Nations resolutions which were imposed by the international community.”Destroying Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction will remove a threat to the security of its neighbors and to peace in the region,”the statement said.

Richard Heidman, president of B’nai B’rith said Hussein’s”continued undermining of international inspections and his persistent attempts to develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction presented a clear and present danger.” Arab-American and Muslim groups, however, were critical.”The American Muslim community wishes to express its deep concern that this most recent phase of the crisis with Iraq could not be resolved without the potential loss of innocent Iraqi or American lives,”said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Awad also expressed concern over the timing of the attack _ the looming vote on Clinton’s impeachment _ and that Muslims and Arab American might become”the target of stereotyping and bias during the crisis.” The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said the deaths and suffering caused by the bombing”will continue long after any cease-fire since they clearly involve the destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure such as electrical systems.”It is appalling that after eight years of sanctions … the United States government would seek to cause further death, pain and suffering to the people of Iraq,”the committee said in a statement.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation, the nation’s oldest interfaith peace organization, also condemned the attack. “Violence against Iraq solves nothing,”the group said in a statement.”The U.S. bombing of Iraq, in the midst of the season of Hanukkah, Ramadan and Christmas, threatens not only to kill innocent people, but to crush the possibility of constructive negotiations with the Iraqi government.”

DEA END RNS