The Government was accused of not telling the truth about Shannon at a press conference in Dublin yesterday.
It was held to announce details of a protest march against war from Parnell Square on Saturday, February 15th, designated International Day for Action against the war.
It will be one of the biggest protests in Dublin since the tax marches of the 1970s, said Mr Brendan Butler, co-ordinator of the NGO Peace Alliance which is organising it.
Also taking part will be members of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA) and the Irish Anti-war Movement.
Presbyterian minister the Rev Terence McCaughey, president of PANA, said the Government was "misleading" the people about what was going on at Shannon, and spoke with "a double tongue" about the Iraq crisis generally.
"Something is being kept from us about arms going through Shannon," he said.
Father Pat Hannon, professor of moral theology at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, said the Government was being "equivocal about Iraq" and he would like "more transparency" about the situation "immediately".
Other speakers included Sister Maureen O'Connell, of the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI), Rev Catherine Myer, of the Presbyterian Church, Mr Khairi Duibi, of the Muslim Association of Ireland, and Mr Gordon Pearson, of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Both Archdeacon Gordon Linney and Dean John Patterson of the Church of Ireland sent messages of support.
Mr Butler expressed disappointment at the absence of a representative of the Jewish community, which had been approached but declined the invitation.
Tracing the evolution of the "just war" doctrine from Cicero, Father Hannon said it taught that when war was justified it was in defence, not attack, and that there must be a reasonable prospect of success. He described as "novel" current attempts to describe a pre-emptive strike as defence.
Mr Duibi said there were ways to get rid of President Saddam other "than by dropping bombs on innocent people". And after Iraq who next? he asked. "Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Libya?"
Sister O'Connell said "to wage war on a country where 47 per cent of the population is under 16 years of age is in clear breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child".
She said the Justice Commission of CORI was calling on the Government "to use all the means at its disposal in the United Nations, in the European Union and in all other relevant international arenas to ensure that the headlong rush to war currently under way is stopped".
Rev Myer, who is from the US, said it was striking that,with only one exception, the churches in the US were all opposed to the war.
Mr Pearson pointed to the Quakers' tradition of pacifism and believed there was "no justification for this war".
