Minute on Iraq

BALTIMORE YEARLY MEETING of the RELIGIOUS SOCIETY of FRIENDS

approved August 4, 2002

CALL TO ACTION REGARDING IRAQ

Friends gathered at the 2002 Baltimore Yearly Meeting annual session expressed concern throughout the week about abundant evidence of plans to stage a substantial escalation of military actions against Iraq. This concern was deepened after hearing from Denis Halliday, former United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq and former United Nations Assistant Secretary General, and Peter Lems, Program Assistant for Iraq at the American Friends Service Committee.

Baltimore Yearly Meeting in session also heard these words from New York Yearly Meeting in its just-concluded session:

In these times New York Yearly Meeting Friends hear anew the call to pray and work for peace. We hear the murmur of a great people, ready to be gathered in peace. Grounded in shared worship, we experience fresh guidance and inward power to act. Friends in New York Yearly Meeting call one another to sustained practice of shared worship and action for peace.

August 2002 offers one month of urgent opportunity to awaken neighbors and congressional representatives electioneering at home, before the United States is irreversibly committed to an invasion of Iraq.

We urge Monthly Meetings and individual Friends to become informed from reliable sources on the issues surrounding this escalation. These sources include Friends Committee on National Legislation, American Friends Service Committee, Quaker Council on European Affairs, and the Quaker United Nations Office. Web sites for these organizations and others may be found on the Internet at www.quaker.org.

Friends may also find it helpful to seek news from credible sources from other nations; many well-known news media outlets are accessible on the Internet.