CPTnet

 January 26, 2004

IRAQ INVITATION TO PRAYER AND FASTING: February 1, 2005, "A king is not
saved by his great army"

The Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) in Baghdad, Iraq invites you to join
with us every Tuesday for a day of prayer, fasting and action that will
continue until Easter week. Participate as you are led either by fasting
(the team will do a bread and water fast) and/or participating with us in a
time of joint prayer. At 9AM Eastern Standard Time (1400GMT) the team will
gather for an hour of focused prayer. You are invited to join for the entire
hour or for as much time as you can. Please also note the Action Steps
connected with each week's sacred passage. If you are so led, the CPT Iraq
team asks that you take the suggested action between Tuesday and Thursday so
that we can be working together.

We also created a web page where people can post reflections that occur
during their time of prayer. You will find a link to the website at the end
of the release.

Tuesday, February 1, 2005 "A king is not saved by his great army"

"Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who depend upon horses: who put
their trust in chariots because of their number, and in horsemen because of
their combined power, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel nor seek the
LORD!"

Iraq has accumulated vast quantities of armaments. Under the previous
regime, large stockpiles of conventional weapons were stored across the
country. When the Coalition Forces began their attack in March 2003, they
brought more weaponry. Some of this new ammunition was made of depleted
uranium. The health risks of Depleted Uranium are unknown and the Coalition
forces using it have remained wilfully ignorant.

In the period immediately after the Coalition's invasion, Christian
Peacemaker Teams urged the Coalition to collect the unexploded ordnance
remaining in the country to reduce the risk of civilian accidents, and
restrict its further use. A United Nations report at the time said that Iraq
might have more unexploded ordnance than any other country in the world. The
Coalition was slow to respond. One soldier told CPT, "Things like that tend
to go away after awhile."

An increasingly well-armed Iraqi resistance movement has been attacking
Coalition forces, Iraqi military and police, and civilians every day.
Heavily armed Coalition forces respond with ferocious attacks on anyone
suspected of armed resistance, including whole cities like Falluja. No side
is able to claim victory. Iraq is slipping further and further back from the
high standards of living it once enjoyed. Billions of dollars in
reconstruction funds are increasingly diverted to "security," but security
in Iraq remains elusive. The only ones to profit from this war are the arms
manufacturers.

ACTION STEP: Write to arms manufacturers, urging them to convert their
enterprises from death-dealing to life-affirming ones. The major suppliers
of ammunition to the war in Iraq are

SNC TEC, c/o SNC-Lavalin Inc., CEO Jacques Lamarre, 455 Ren