Archbishop attacks UK's Blair over Iraq war

NNN0LHI

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Tue Apr-20-04 09:13 PM
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Archbishop attacks UK's Blair over Iraq war

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L21343143.htm

LONDON, April 21 (Reuters) - Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury has attacked British Prime Minister Tony Blair's handling of the war in Iraq, accusing him of damaging his country's "political health".

A government which "habitually ignored expert advice...repressed criticism (and) manipulated public media" risked jeopardising "its claim to obedience", Dr Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's 70 million Anglicans, said in a sermon published on Wednesday.

"We face a general weakening of trust in the political system of our nation," he said in a carefully worded sermon which did not mention Blair or Iraq by name.

"There were things government believed it knew and claimed to know on a privileged basis which, it emerged, were anything but certain."

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muriel_volestrangler

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Wed Apr-21-04 02:58 AM
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1. Link to The Times article (subscription needed for non-UK)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-1081927,00.html

He condemned the "idle and selfish hearts" of those who advocate Christian obedience while themselves being slow to bring their own thoughts "under obedience to Christ".

Dr Williams said: "Part of the continuing damage to our political health in this country has to do with a sense of the events of the last year on the international scene being driven by something other than attention.

"There were things government believed it knew and claimed to know on a privileged basis which, it emerged, were anything but certain. There were things which regional experts and others knew which seemed not to have received attention."
...
Dr Williams continued: "A government that habitually ignored expert advice, habitually pressed its interests abroad in ways that ignored manifest needs and priorities in the wider human and non-human environment, habitually repressed criticism or manipulated public media, such a regime would, to say the least, jeopardise its claim to obedience because it was refusing attention."

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truthspeaker

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Wed Apr-21-04 07:32 AM
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2. yeehaw! Nice sermon, Vic

kicking to the front page

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Vladimir

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Wed Apr-21-04 07:34 AM
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3. What's going on??

First the Pope, now the Archbishop of Cantenbury... that's two religious leaders I've agreed with in a week! I must be delusional or something...

V

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