Bruce Cockburn Accompanies Delegation To Iraq

Today, Detroit, Mich. area Bishop Thomas Gumbleton will lead a delegation on a humanitarian fact-finding mission to Iraq. Among the group members are singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn, photojournalist Linda Panetta and physician’s assistant Johanna Berrigan. Catholic Relief Services and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Baghdad, will assist in coordinating activities for the group.

The trip will include visits to hospitals, schools, orphanages and encampments for those displaced by the war. Each of the delegates, with the exception of Cockburn, traveled to Iraq just prior to the US invasion last March. The group hopes to trek to many of the areas it visited in the past to better understand how the war, and the ensuing occupation has affected the general population.

“I feel it is imperative to learn first-hand from the Iraqi people what the international peace community can do to best assist them,” Berrigan said.

“The calamitous situation faced by Iraqis is a human event that needs to be understood by all of us,” added Cockburn. “As a songwriter, it goes with the job to bear witness to the human events; as a concerned citizen, I welcome a unique opportunity to gain some of that understanding which I hope to share with others.”

With thousands of Iraqis dead, and countless maimed and orphaned by the war and occupation, the group plans to meet with community and religious leaders to hear and observe how day-to-day living for the Iraqi people has been affected.

“We have in the past experienced how much the Iraqi people have suffered and endured and we know how much their faith has sustained them,” said Bishop Gubleton. “It is my hope that our solidarity with them will give them hope and strength.”

“I certainly don’t feel that most Americans have a real grasp on the extent of destruction, poverty and destitution that has ensued in Iraq since March,” said Panetta. “It is my intent to document this and to put a human face on the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have been causalities of this war and the occupation.”