The Swedish Mission Covenant Church Board of directors as well as the board of the youth organization has agreed to the following statement, due to the threat of a war on Iraq:

After the Gulf war, the UN conducted weapons inspections during seven years, which resulted in approximately 95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were discovered and destroyed. Consequently, the UN weapons inspectors should now be the ones to disarm Iraq.

In order to do this more time is needed!

For the past 12 years Iraq has suffered from severe misgovernment and harsh UN sanctions. This has been a strike to the people and not the elite. The program "food for oil" has reduced the suffering but not ended it. Children die every month due to malnutrition, lack of drinking water and elementary health care. The sanctions are not leading to the fall of the dictatorship. In order to give the process of democracy, a chance, the people of Iraq must have normal living circumstances and open contact with the world.

The regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq is dictatorial, oppressive and ruthless towards its own people. The use of weapons of mass destruction in the war on Iran and the Kurds in northern Iraq is well documented, as well as the ambition to obtain its own nuclear weapons.

But it is also known that the USA as well as several other countries in Western and Eastern Europe supplied Iraq with chemical and biological weapons. We closed our eyes when they were used and we have a joint responsibility, together with the USA and Great Britain, in Saddam

Hussein's former crimes.

President George W Bush and the American government are focusing only on a military solution in order to support its own interests in the area. A war would strike the people of Iraq very hard. One estimate claims that 250,000 civilians would be sacrificed in an attack. Furthermore, an offensive war will create political and economical chaos in the entire Middle East.

The Swedish government - and most political representatives - are all too passive when faced with the war plans on Iraq. The government has not sufficiently and clearly renounced the war and military violence as a solution to the problem.

There is an evident risk that the USA's war on terror has pushed the development into a spiral of violence. The UN, as a guardian of world peace and human rights for all, can be exploited as a catalyst of a cruel attack war. This must be avoided.

Our assessment is that the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq must be overthrown and substituted by a democratically elected government. But a massive offensive war is not the rightful way to accomplish this goal. Instead the Swedish government must work to annul the economic sanctions against the people of Iraq, isolate the power elite in Iraq, maintain an effective weapons control and strengthen the democratic powers in the country with a change of regime.

We appeal to the Swedish government to take the necessary steps to prevent an offensive war against Iraq!

The Board of Directors

The Swedish Mission Covenant Church

The Board of Directors

The Swedish Mission Covenant Church Youth