I am here today in my capacity as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the countrys oldest and largest civil rights organisation.
In mid-October 2002, the NAACP Board voted unanimously to oppose a unilateral attack on Iraq. In doing so, we joined a growing chorus of Americans and others across the globe.
In one poll this week, for example, Black Americans opposed war against Iraq by a margin of more than three to one.
Opponents of war are fearful of the effects of an attack on Iraq, concerned about the threats of collateral damage to our economy and our civil liberties, suspicious of the motives of our government, opposed to both unilateral action and to policy, however multinational, in pursuit of empire, not world peace.
Those of us gathered here today differ in many ways, but by our presence share an enduring love of our country and an abiding faith in its institutions, its traditions, and its love of liberty.
One of those traditions is the right indeed the responsibility and requirement of citizens to examine the actions of our leaders, to call them to account, to oppose them when they are wrong, just as we support them when they are right.
Today they are wrong and we are right to protest.
We have come not as partisans, but as patriots. We know the Bush administration has secretly directed its energies toward removing Saddam Hussein from office since just after the tragedy of 11 September 2001, although scant evidence then or now connects Iraq with the attacks or their sponsors.
And we know that the concentration on war with Iraq was contrived, at least in part, as a political strategy designed to win the recent mid-term congressional elections.
Indeed, the White House Chief of Staff explained why the verbal campaign against Iraq began in September of last year, and not earlier.
From a marketing point of view, he said, you dont introduce a new product in August.
From a marketing point of view, the new product was a great success.
From a moral point of view, it was shameless.
It served to obscure the erosion of our civil liberties, assaults on justice and equality, the failing market, the evaporation of pensions and retirement benefits, the shift in our economy from surplus to growing deficit, the calamity of corporate crime, and it concealed record unemployment.
Inspection, not pre-emptive war
On 12 September 2002, President Bush spoke here in New York before the United Nations, reassuring our allies and enemies alike that multilateralism and cooperation would be hallmarks of his approach to Iraq.
But eight days later, on 20 September, the administration announced a frightening new doctrine pre-emption erasing for the first time the distinction between pre-emptive and preventive war. And erasing our moral standing across the globe.
A perhaps chastened administration was forced back to the United Nations, where there emerged the resolution requiring Iraq to hand over a declaration of all nuclear, biological and chemical stocks.
The United Nations Resolution declared a failure to do so to be a material breach. The question is whether that breach is a license to go to war.
We answer no!
Not when an attack on Iraq may result in the use of weapons of mass destruction on our troops, Iraqs neighbouring states, or United States facilities abroad.
Not when an invasion may induce Iraq to transfer weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.
Not when Iraq does not appear to present an imminent threat and while Osama bin Laden still does!
Since the Gulf War, the United Nations has weakened and contained Iraqs programme of developing weapons of mass destruction.
In lieu of unilateral attack, we ought to support the reintroduction of an intrusive, unfettered inspection regime into Iraq, backed by a force of multinational soldiers.
The United Nations can and should develop and implement a more effective containment policy against Iraq, preventing materials for the development of weapons of mass destruction from entering Iraq and preventing those weapons from being used against other nations.
In opposition to unilateral war against Iraq, we join a distinguished group of patriotic Americans.
A number of former military leaders, including the former Commander of all United States troops in the Middle East, have opposed an attack on Iraq by the United States.
The Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement asking the United States to step back from the brink of war and help lead the world to act together to fashion an effective global response to Iraqs threats .
A time for reason and peace
War with Iraq will not make us safer instead, it will inflame anti-US sentiment. A pre-emptive attack violates the United Nations charter, which prohibits member states from attacking others except in self-defence. What will our response be when others go to war will we caution them do as we say, not as we do?
A war will cost billions of dollars, at a time when funding for education, the environment and health care is already at risk.
We are already engaged in a war against terrorism which is far from over Osama bin Laden is still alive, attacks are threatened around the globe, Afghanistan is far from secure, the job begun there is still far from finished.
Years ago, from a church pulpit here in New York, Martin Luther King warned that bombs dropped on Vietnam would explode in the streets of America.
We Americans must ask ourselves today, are we prepared for the consequences and after effects of an attack on Iraq continued destabilisation of the region, the deaths of American fighting women and men, the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis, the collapse of regimes, however undemocratic, which now support us, near permanent occupation by our soldiers of a defeated Iraq and the millions upon millions required to bring it stability?
If we really favour regime change, we ought to begin right here at home.
We need quiet reason, not bellicose rhetoric. We need allies, not acrimony. We need political wisdom, not partisan wisecracks. We need honour, not hubris.
We need peace, not war.
