In this update:

* Peace Pledge Turn-in

* Act Now: Join a Delegation

* Successful Letter to the Editor Drive - Thank you!

* Call to End the Economic Sanctions in the International Herald Tribune

* Photos of an Installed Chlorinator

* News Briefs: includes Cheney's visit to the Middle East and preparations for and reactions to U.S. military intervention and more

Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is scheduled to enter the names of the peace pledge into the Congressional record on Thursday, March 21.

Recess and Meetings: Congress will be on recess from March 22 to April 8. This is the time to schedule local meetings with your senators and representative regarding the peace pledge and its call to not expand the war into Iraq.

We have more than 3,000 names from 40 countries and 48 states. We are missing North Dakota and Wyoming. We do have support in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

This is NOT the end of the pledge. Another turn-in date will be set before the United Nations Security Council meeting at the end of the six-month oil-for-food cycle in May.

Peace Pledge signers are on the web

Signers received at FOR http://www.scn.org/wwfor/peacepledgesigners.html

Signers received at AFSC http://www.peaceresponse.org/pledge/signatures.cgi

So far, peace activists in 8 different states agreed to form delegationsto meet with their Congressperson around March 25. Act now and become

part of the delegation: meet with your elected officials to discuss your concerns about the Bush administration^Òs policies towards Iraq. Let them know that you, and hundreds of people like you, oppose more bloodshed in Iraq and want the unjust economic sanctions against Iraqi civilians be removed. In order to join the delegations, contact the head of delegation in your state:

· California: Bob Mccloskey (LAFOR, Los Angeles) Email: bmccloskey@seiu535.org

· Colorado: Carolyn Bninski (Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center,Denver) Email: bninski@qwest.net

· Florida: Susan Glaser (Lake Worth FOR) Email: susanowenglaser@aol.com

· Indiana: Dean Beery (Huntington FOR, Huntington) Email: dbeery@onlyinternet.net

· New York: Ibrahim Ramey (National FOR-Nyack) Email: disarm@forusa.org

· Pennsylvania: Peter Lems (AFSC, Philadelphia) Email: Plems@afsc.org

· Texas: Charlie Jackson (Central Texas FOR, Austin) Email: charliej@ki-soft.com

· Washington: Mike Yarrow (WWFOR, Seattle) Email: wwfor@connectexpress.com

Points for your meetings:

1) No to the spread of War - despite unsubstantiated allegations, and months of efforts to make a link, there is no indication of a tie between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.

2) Regional Disarmament - enforce article 14 of UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 687 (the sanctions resolution) identifies the goal of "establishing in the Middle East a zone free of weapons of mass destruction and all missiles to deliver them, and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons." But this UN goal, which the U.S. formally endorsed, remains an unfulfilled ideal in the context of regional Middle East security.

3) A Peaceful Alternative - engage international institutions (http://www.afsc.org/iraq/guide/alternatives.shtm)

4) End the economic sanctions - see the resource guide (http://www.afsc.org/iraq/guide/Default.shtm) or FOR's sample letters (http://www.scn.org/wwfor/sampleletters.html)

Timing makes the difference

The campaign letter to the editor posted to the e-mail list on March 8th was a success. The letter focused on supporting the resumption of dialogue the previous day between the Secretary General of the United Nations and the Foreign Minister of Iraq. The letter also called for the United States to support these efforts at dialogue.

We sent 721 letters to the media during the week the letter was up. Thank you!

Letter of the Month

Am I the only one alarmed by the [Washington] Post's reports this week about the Bush Administration's consideration of employing nuclear weapons to subdue the madman Saddam Hussein? The Administration argues that Saddam must be removed because he has committed genocide against his own people, yet the deployment of nuclear weapons in Iraq would only be another act of genocide. Kathy M. Washington D.C.

Yesterday, a full-page appeal calling for an end to the economic sanctions against Iraq runs in the International Herald Tribune. The message carries the signatures of 250 prominent individuals and organizations from around the world (see the ad (http://www.notinournames.org/iht/statement.html) and name of the signatories (http://www.notinournames.org/iht/signatories.html)). The Campaign of Conscience is listed with institutional identification of AFSC, Fellowship of Reconciliation and Pax Christi, USA.

"How much more evidence from reputable international organizations such as UNICEF, WHO, CARE, Caritas, the IRC and Save the Children/UK is needed to convince the UN Security Council that the imposed sanctions are harming innocent people beyond any tolerable limit and violate the very international laws the United Nations is meant to protect?" asks Hans von Sponeck, the initiator of the statement in the International Herald Tribune. "The place to settle the Iraq conflict is the UN Security Council and the Arab League, not the battlefield."

Take a look at a chlorinator in Iraq. We now have a series of photographs documenting the installation of the first gas chlorinator in Iraq. Visit http://www.afsc.org/conscience/h2o.shtm

Britain's military leaders issued a stark warning to Tony Blair that any war against Iraq is doomed to fail and would lead to the loss of lives for little political gain. While the U.S. has asked for up to 25,000 UK personnel to join an invasion force, the sources warned that Arab countries were likely to rebel over any Western attack on Iraq without a Middle East peace deal. (The Observer, March 17, 2002)

The British Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short increased tensions within the government on Sunday when she became the first cabinet minister to declare her opposition to "a blind military attack on Iraq." She said that such a move would be very unwise and hinted that she might even quit the cabinet if she thought the attack was unwarranted. "We all have bottom lines," she warned. (Al-Bawaba News, 18/03/2002)

The list of signatories of British Members of Parliament to a motion expressing "deep unease" about Mr. Blair's apparent willingness to support a military strike against Iraq had reached 107, yesterday morning. More are expected to be added. (Daily Telegraph, 15/03/2002)

A majority of British voters are opposed to British backing for American military action against Iraq, according to this month's Guardian/ICM opinion poll. The poll shows that the Germans and French are more in tune with British public opinion on this issue than Mr. Blair is. The German defense minister, Rudolph Scharping, yesterday made clear there was no majority in the German parliament for intervention in Iraq. The French have also made clear their reluctance. (The Guardian, Tuesday March 19, 2002)

Vice President Cheney left the Middle East Wednesday, lacking a mandate for action against Iraqi President Hussein. During a 12-country, 10-day trip to Britain and the Middle East Cheney met Arab leaders who he acknowledged were preoccupied with the surging Israeli-Palestinian conflict and who said Iraq was a far less pressing priority. (Reuters, Wednesday March 20)

Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad made clear that Arabs have little patience for considering a strategy to confront Iraq while pictures of Palestinians killed during clashes with Israelis continue to dominate newscasts and front pages across the region. "The people who are dying today on the streets are not a result of any Iraqi action," he said at a joint news conference with Cheney. "The people that are dying on the streets today are dying as the result of Israeli action." (Washington Post, 18/03/2002)

Jordan's King Abdullah II is urging the Bush administration to abandon ideas of taking on the regime of Saddam Hussein, predicting that any U.S. military action against Iraq could produce an "Armageddon" in the Middle East. (LA Times, March 17, 2002)

Some Saudi sources claim that about 1 million Iraqis are so closely tied to the fate of Saddam's regime that they will not switch sides as readily as the Afghans and may fight to the death. (The Guardian, 15/03/2002)

Iraqi Vice President Yassin Ramadan was quoted on Monday as saying Baghdad would agree only to a conditional resumption of U.N. weapons inspections. "Iraq rejects the return of international (arms) inspectors unless the locations to be searched are identified and a timetable is set up and respected." (Reuters, March 17)

Iraq's parliamentary speaker, Saadoun Hammadi, during his visit to Morocco: "Many Arab and non-Arab friends have called on Iraq to remove all pretexts for a US invasion of Iraq, so we are happy to co-operate with all countries ... including the United Nations, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to avoid new US attacks." (Daily Telegraph, 19/03/2002)

President Bush upped the ante in America's "war on terrorism" again, when he refused to rule out the possibility of launching nuclear strikes as part of an attack on Iraq. (Guardian, 14/03/2002)

In what appears to be the first concrete indication that the US is planning a military attack against Iraq despite objections from its allies, last month CIA officers surveyed three key airfields in northern Iraq that could be used to receive arms and troops in the event of a conflict. (Al-Bawaba News, 18/03/2002)

The US government has informed Iraqi dissidents that it will convene a crucial meeting in Europe in May of up to 400 former Iraqi military officers and opposition figures to chart the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein. (Boston Globe, 3/16/2002)

Robert Baer, the ex-CIA man in Iraq during the failed uprising in 1995, says the US is not in a position to strike against Iraq because it does not understand anything about the country, 'If the US is to bomb Saddam and his army until there is no army, what comes after that? No one is discussing the ethnic composition of Iraq or what Iran is likely to do.' 'The US is in no position to re-jigger this because we don't understand anything about the country. If I were the Iranians, for instance, I would try to set up a state in southern Iraq and add three million barrels a day to my account. That could begin to rival Saudi Arabia. Of course, I don't know this is going to happen, but the US government doesn't know either. The heart of the debate is about taking out all Saddam's tanks in a couple of weeks.' (The Observer, Sunday March 3, 2002)

As part of a US attempt to build up a picture of Iraq as a threat to the region, the head of the CIA has told the US Senate that Iraq has had contact with al-Qaeda and may be working with the group. George Tenet did not present any new hard evidence of Iraqi collusion with al-Qaeda to the committee. (BBC News, Tuesday, 19 March, 2002)

The United Nations has started moving tens of thousands of tents and blankets to western Iran in readiness for a huge wave of Iraqi refugees who are expected to escape across the border if the US and Britain launch military action to topple the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein. Some diplomats believe the total number of refugees expected to flee across the border because of US attacks could reach 150,000, even though Saddam Hussein is expected to close the frontiers, as he did in previous conflicts. Tens of thousands of others would be displaced inside Iraq, unable to bypass or bribe the Iraqi border guards. (The Guardian, March 16, 2002)

This update was written by Hossein Alizadeh, Fellowship of Reconciliation, and Peter Lems, American Friends Service Committee, with advice from Mike Yarrow, Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation, and others. Web posted May 1, 2002, by Jean Buskin, WWFOR, bb369@scn.org.

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