PROVIDENCE -- Adding their voices to a chorus of doubts across the nation, City Council members last night declared themselves opposed to a U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The council adopted a resolution calling for a diplomatic strategy to deal with "the Iraq situation" and a reliance on world courts and international justice to promote international and national security.
The declaration was met with cacaphonous applause, cheering and foot-stomping by a crowd of 150 or more antiwar activists who filled the council chamber in City Hall.
A great array of placards and signs were held aloft by the activists, some of whom sat on the floor in the main aisle or wore costumes.
"Providence City Council: No War for Oil," one sign said. "Let Iraq Live," read another. And one sign proclaimed, "Bush's Bottom Line is Overhead Iraq."
One man carried what looked like a cardboard missile and one woman was costumed as if a rocket had gone through her head, with each end showing. She wore a bib that was dotted with peace symbols.
The vote for the resolution was 10 to 1, with 4 abstentions. In favor were Councilmen David A. Segal, Miguel Luna, John J. Lombardi, Josephine DiRuzzo, Luis A. Aponte, Kevin Jackson, Rita M. Williams, Balbina A. Young, Peter S. Mancini and Joseph DeLuca.
Councilman Patrick K. Butler voted no and members John J. Igliozzi, Carol A. Romano, Ronald W. Allen and Terrence M. Hassett were recorded as not voting.
A campaign in favor of the resolution, organized in part by the American Friends Service Committee, had bombarded members with telephone calls, letters and e-mail, to some effect.
DeLuca, for example, made it plain that he was voting to uphold the convictions of his constituency rather than his own beliefs in supporting the resolution. He called Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein "a horrible threat to the world."
The council also received a petition bearing the signatures of 226 people -- all but about 25 gave Providence addresses -- asking for an anti-war resolution.
Hassett said he abstained because it is too soon to say what the correct course of action will be until the next report from the United Nations inspectors is submitted. Igliozzi said the resolution is premature.
Segal sought to bring the question home when he said that the issue is not war versus no war, but the expending of national resources on war that are badly needed in Providence and other places.
He quoted a figure produced by a group called the National Priorities Project asserting that a war and post-war occupation of Iraq would conservatively cost the nation $100 billion and would divert $28 million in federal aid from Providence.
Luna cited a Vietnam-era quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who said, "Poverty, urban problems and social progress generally are ignored when the guns of war become a national obsession."
So far, 69 state legislatures and city and county councils, including Providence, have adopted resolutions opposing war with Iraq, or a majority of their memberships have signed letters to that effect, according to a coalition called Cities for Peace.
Offline 
Send Email