http://www.jta.org/aug99/31-pope.htm
World Jewish Congress troubled
by pope's planned Saddam meeting
By Douglas Davis
LONDON, Aug. 31 (JTA) -- The World Jewish
Congress finds it ``deeply troubling"
that the pope plans to meet Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein in early December.
Pope John Paul II will visit Iraq for three
days starting Dec. 2, in a trip that will
include a helicopter visit to the town of
Ur, the traditional birthplace of Abraham,
some 200 miles south of Baghdad.
Elan Steinberg, WJC's executive director,
said the pope's desire to visit Ur before the
turn of the millennium has been known for some
time.
``There are questions as to the propriety of
that," Steinberg said. But that is a
``different dimension than his meeting with
Saddam Hussein, in defiance of U.N. sanctions.
``We at the WJC find this deeply troubling."
The pope has emphasized that the trip to Iraq
is part of a millennial personal pilgrimage to
biblical sites and that it will have no
political significance beyond a message of peace.
But observers believe the visit is bound to
represent a significant diplomatic boost for
Saddam, who has been treated as an
international pariah for the past nine years.
The Chaldean Catholic patriarch, Raphael
Bidawid, who represents some 80 percent of
Iraq's 1 million-member Christian minority,
has accused the United States and Israel of
"trying hard to prevent the visit."
James Foley, a U.S. State Department
spokesman, said last Friday there is concern
the "regime in Iraq would attempt to
manipulate the visit for political purposes."
Foley said that while the United States
sympathized with the pope's desire to make
the pilgrimage, "Iraq remains a brutal
dictatorship where torture and summary
execution are commonplace."
The pope is understood to be held in high
regard in Iraq. He lobbied against the 1991
Gulf War, consistently opposed economic sanctions,
and branded last December's U.S. and British
bombing campaign as an "aggression."
Tareq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister,
said that the United States and Britain
should stop military operations over Iraq
during the pope's visit.
In March, the 79-year-old pontiff is
scheduled to visit Jerusalem and Nazareth
in Israel, Bethlehem in the
Palestinian-controlled areas, and Jordan.
He is also planning separate trips to St
Catherine's Monastery, built on Mount Sinai in
Egypt, and Damascus in Syria. No dates have
been set for these visits.
(JTA staff writer Julia Goldman in New York
contributed to this report.)
(c) Jewish Telegraphic Agency Inc.
