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UP to 100,000 body bags
and 6,000 coffins have been secretly delivered to a US base in
Italy, a Catholic archbishop claimed yesterday.
Archbishop Renato
Martino, president of the Pope's Council of Peace and Justice,
said the consignment had arrived at the Sigonella base near
Catania on the island of Sicily 10 days ago.
He said: "Americans
are expecting a high number of casualties. That is why so many
body bags and coffins have been sent to the base.
"I am very
apprehensive about this. War brings only destruction, misery and
hate. It doesn't resolve anything and is always like this.
"A true preventative
action would be to try and avoid war. The consequences of this war
will make themselves all too obvious on the American people when
they start to see coffins with loved ones in returning home."
Archbishop Martino added
that he would be willing to travel to Washington and meet
President Bush if the Pope asked him to be his special envoy.
The naval air station at
Sigonella has been an American "hub" command centre
since 1959. More than 3,000 US marines and Navy personnel are
stationed there.
BRITAIN risks being
dragged into another Vietnam, ex-Chancellor Ken Clarke warned
yesterday. He said Tony Blair would pay heavily at the polls if he
launched an invasion of Iraq without public backing.
Mr Clarke, a former Tory
leadership contender, said on BBC Radio 4: "If you go to war
in modern times you need the broad bulk of the public behind you -
you are putting the forces at risk, you are engaging the country
in military conflict in the short term, perhaps more terrorism in
the long term.
"It is a broad
analogy to draw between America and Vietnam but what destroyed
America in Vietnam was the bulk of the American public were never
really persuaded of the case for fighting in Vietnam at all."
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