Church-led effort to bridge Iraq's rifts

In his black suit and shirt and white collar, the tall British clergyman stands out among the gathering of Sunni Muslim clerics in flowing robes, white turbans, and colored headdresses.

The Rev. Canon Andrew White nods thoughtfully as he reads a statement by one of the sheikhs criticizing the "embarrassing failure" of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and accusing the US-appointed Governing Council of being unrepresentative. The statement also condemns violence, urging instead "constructive resistance" against the occupation, such as peaceful protests and civil disobedience.

"It's good," says Mr. White. "I like it because I'm not an American nor a member of the Governing Council," the Anglican minister jokes, raising a laugh from the Sunni clerics.

The meeting, in a mosque on Baghdad's outskirts, is one of White's efforts to unite Iraq's different faiths and settle intrasectarian differences in hopes of averting a potential civil war here. The clerics, whom the Monitor was asked not to name, are from two Sunni organizations who cannot agree on how to deal with the Coalition Provisional Authority.

White is the director of the International Center for Reconciliation at England's Coventry Cathedral and the Mideast envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Anglican Church. He has helped mediate numerous intractable and violent situations, including in Iraq, which he has visited regularly over the past six years.

Now the veteran peacemaker faces arguably his greatest challenge - bringing Iraq's religious and tribal groups together in an attempt to quell the violence racking the country.

A recent upsurge of bloody suicide-bomb attacks against Iraqis, disputes over an electoral timetable, and an unrelenting insurgency against coalition troops is fueling concern that Iraq could be gradually sliding into civil war.

That goal is set to receive a boost on Tuesday with the launch of the British-funded Iraqi Center for Reconciliation and Peace, which aims principally to help stem the violence that continues to plague the country. The center has won the backing of such high-profile figures as Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's preeminent Shiite cleric, and Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi, the head of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the highest authority in Sunni Islam.

"It will bring together for the first time key Sunni and Shiite leaders along with Kurds, Christians, and others," White says in an interview.

It was a tough sell, he adds, persuading diverse groups of Iraqis to take the idea seriously and to participate.

"I couldn't have done it if I was an American. The British are perceived differently here," he says. "We have to be as radical in the search for peace as the insurgents are in their search for ever more violent methods."

Being a Christian clergyman helped, however, because he was regarded as a "neutral player."

"You actually need very considerable input from an independent third party. That's what we've tried to be," he says.

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