Sydney, Australia, May 27, 2004 / 22:00 pm
George Cardinal Pell believes Australia has an obligation to try to build a decent society in postwar Iraq.
The archbishop of Sydney had initially opposed the war, saying that the grounds for attack – weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s support of Al Qaeda – were never established.
However, in a recent issue of the Catholic Weekly, the archbishop is reported as saying that since the Australian military is now there "we should work, certainly for a significant amount of time, to try to hand over the country to a legitimate and lawful government".
The cardinal said he is pleased that Saddam has been toppled as leader but he added that the “appalling” abuses of Iraqi prisoners “badly damage the moral legitimacy of our case to be there and I unhesitatingly condemn them.”