They want to give peace a chance.

  That's why they held a teach-in to discuss a possible U.S. war against Iraq on Saturdayafternoon at North Central College in Naperville. Issues of war and peace were examined by a panel of specialists on the Middle East. The DuPage Peace through Justice Coalition and the Peace and Justice Group at North Central College hosted the event, attended by about 75 people.

  "War is not the answer concerning Iraq," said DuPage Peace Co-chair Mike Ross, who moderated the program. "It will be the Iraqi people who will suffer the most from the war, not Saddam Hussein."

  In Ross' opinion, the U.S. war footing against Iraq is rooted not in the Bush administration's desire to fight terrorism but in a desire to secure key economic markets.

  Ross said that, at one time, the United States supported Osama bin Laden when Russia was waging war against Afghanistan and also backed Hussein when Iraq was fighting Iran.

  Lillian Moats, a co-chair with the DuPage Peace through Justice Coalition and a member of the panel that discussed Iraq, talked about the first gulf war and its aftereffects.

  "U.S. sanctions have devastated the Iraqi population, despite the Bush's administration's claim that it supports the Iraqi people," said Moats, noting that 15 million Iraqi civilians have died in the aftermath of the gulf war, many of them children younger than 5.

  Moats also criticized the Pentagon's resistance to investigating the causes of the health problems of some men and women in the military during the gulf war.

  "People say our group does not support our men and women in the military, but we do support them and we want to see them come back home," she said.

  Bob Cordova, who attended the event, said there are people who believe terrorism can be fought with terrorism and who think those who want peace are naive.

  In his opinion, the attitude of the United States is that it has the power and nobody is going to stop it from doing what it wants.

  Awad Paul Sifri, one of the panelists who discussed Israeli-Palestinian relations and who spent the first seven years of his life in Jordan, said that much of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelites is rooted in the shift in population of what is now Israel from a largely Palestinian people to a mostly Jewish people, and that Palestinians believe they have been displaced from their land.

  The panelists called for a new world order where countries respect each other's sovereignty and allow for a forum of discussion in which they come together in diversity but are united in their desire for peace.