Our U.S. Congress must decide whether to authorize spending $87 billion on Iraq this year. Examining this expenditure from the perspective of brotherhood under God, the huge sum might be justified as our responsibility. We made a preemptive strike resulting in lost infrastructure and unemployment of 70 percent in some parts of Iraq.

But now we are receiving almost daily reminders that a powerful segment of Iraqis oppose U.S. occupation. Apparently these violent discontents prefer not to be helped by their attackers, and some of them reject the U.S. appointed Governing Council.

Iraqis are telling us they are eager to assert their status as a sovereign nation again; Europeans are concerned that U.S. businesses expect special advantages, and world-wide terrorists are signaling that they consider U.S. power to be evil on the world stage.

Why not turn over the transition to freedom in Iraq to the Iraqis under the United Nations?

I think we know why. President Bush’s neo-conservative advisors, with their deep connections to giant corporations, have every intention of gaining hegemony over Iraq’s assets. Their plan to Americanize that key Middle Eastern country prevents them from accepting shared authority there.

They want international funding for reconstruction, but they are fiercely opposed to accepting real partnership with the U.N.

If our young men and women were truly fighting for freedom in the 120-degree heat of Iraq, let us support their sacrifice and uphold American principles of democracy by surrendering American control of Iraq’s reconstruction.

Craigen Healy, New Vineyard