(AINA) -- George W. Bush, President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500

14 June, 2004

Dear Mr. President,

I wrote you a letter, copy enclosed, on 16 December, 2002, to express to you on behalf of myself and the thousands of Assyrians affiliated with our Ancient Church of the East in the United States, in Iraq, and elsewhere in the world, our appreciation for what you had done to recognize the Assyrian Democratic Movement as one of the constituent members of the opposition to Saddam Husseinýs regime. Iraq was not yet liberated at that time.

Once again, Mr. President, allow me to express my deep gratitude and full support, on behalf of our congregation here in Chicago and on behalf of all the Assyrians affiliated with the Ancient Church of the East in the U.S., in Iraq, and elsewhere in the world, for your decision to liberate Iraq from the tyrannical and inhuman regime of Saddam Hussein. We firmly believe that when history is finally written about this period, when the fog of war has settled, your decisions and actions in Iraq will be recognized as a turning point in history just like the battle of Tours in France in 732 AD turned out to be a turning point in reversing the advance of Moorish Islamic forces into Western Europe. Today dark, radical and reactionary Islamic forces are once again hard at work to wipe out any vestiges of Christianity or secularism from the Middle East and South Asia in what they view, in their twisted and distorted vision, as a war of Islam against what they call ýcrusadersý and ýinfidelsý. The only hope that history will not repeat itself and that radical and fundamentalist Islamic forces will not prevail, Mr. President, is what the U.S. is doing in Iraq under your leadership ý turning the country into a beacon of light for the whole area by establishing a free, independent and democratic state where human, religious, political and ethnic rights of individuals and groups are enshrined in a permanent constitution and where the minority is not oppressed by the majority. But the only guarantee that the provisions of the constitution become the law of the land, abided by and respected by all, is if the United States maintains a long term military presence in Iraq because time and again the military regimes of the Middle East have proved that, to them, constitutions are not worth the ink and paper they are written on. In fact, the first communiquý of every coup has been to declare that the constitution is abolished and marshal law imposed.

With the June 30 deadline for turning over sovereignty to an Iraqi government rapidly approaching, we, Assyrian Christians, are inescapably reminded, with apprehension, of another turn over of independence to an Iraqi government by the British 72 years ago, in 1932, despite the League of Nationsý doubts and expressed concerns about the lack of guarantees for the protection of minorities. In less than a year that was followed by the massacre of the Assyrians and by looting and raping of women by the Iraqi army in the Assyrian towns and villages of northern Iraq. Even now Assyrians and others are being killed in Iraq for no other reason than their cooperating with or working for the coalition forces. Just recently several Assyrian women were killed at the entrance to the American Administration headquarters in Baghdad, on their way to work to support their families.

Here, in our beloved America, we also observe some inequities that we hope will be addressed by your administration. It is a recognized fact that the fastest growing religion ý through immigration, reproduction or religious conversion ý is Islam. In every city there is a mosque, probably built and financed by the Saudi government, and yet, ironically, Christians are not allowed to worship as a group even in their own homes in Saudi Arabia. We also feel that Moslem immigrants from the Arab world and Pakistan are flooding U.S. cities not because they are persecuted or discriminated against but for economic reasons while Assyrians and other Christians from the Middle East are often stranded, with school-age children, for years in countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Greece awaiting visas to immigrate to the U.S., Canada, Australia or other Christian countries because of discrimination and intolerance. We hope something will be done by the administration to address this issue.

Therefore, Mr. President, we pray and hope that the U.S., having liberated Iraq, will not pull out its forces from the country, under the ongoing and incessant attacks and negative reporting from a liberal media, until strong democratic institutions have been established and enough safeguards have been put in place for the protection of the minorities, and in particular Assyrian Christians, from oppression and religious sectarianism.

We, the Assyrians, were there in Mesopotamia, now called Iraq, for thousands of years B.C., and history is a witness to the fact that we had build empires and civilizations in that part of the world long before Islam, as a religion or a political entity, appeared on the face of the earth. We are the indigenous people of Mesopotamia. Our people should not be driven out of their ancestral homeland by radical Islamic movements, by religious intolerance or by persecution. We have survived all those forces for millennia by the blood of our martyrs. Now that we are facing a new challenge, we hope that the United States and Britain will not sit as neutral spectators should the situation in Iraq deteriorate and our people are victimized again. For more than a decade, the United States and Britain have protected the Kurds and the Shiýites from the savagery and tyranny of Saddam Husseinýs regime through the no-fly-zones in the north and south of Iraq. We hope that the same protection will be extended to all the minorities when sovereignty is finally turned over to the Iraqi government. That way, we hope, our Christian Assyrian people will be able to live in peace, like all the other ethnic and religious groups, in a sovereign and independent Iraq redeemed as a member of the civilized world.

God bless you, Mr. President, and God bless America.

Rev. Awiqam Pithyou
Archdeacon, Saint Odisho Church
Chicago, Illinois

CC.

The Honorable Mr. Colin L. Powell, U.S. Secretary of State
The Honorable Mr. Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense