WASHINGTON — As attention in Iraq begins to shift from war to rebuilding, some Catholic leaders wonder what kind of society the United States and United Nations want to create there.

In the past, institutions such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.N. Population Fund have promoted family planning, including abortion. Such promotion could result in a backlash among the traditional Christians and Muslims of Iraq, some observers say.

“I know that wherever [the U.N. Population Fund] goes, contraception and abortion follow,” said Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, an organization that lobbies the United Nations full time regarding pro-life issues.

In fact, Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has already issued a statement saying, “If we are fighting for freedom in Iraq, then most surely that freedom should extend to women globally and in the United States. The most fundamental freedom is the freedom of reproductive self-determination … Reproductive health care is an essential part of any health care package — to address sexual violence, HIV prevention, maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity, and to provide basic reproductive health services,” meaning abortion.

If aid workers do not promote contraception and abortion in Iraq, said Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, “[I]t will be the exception to the rule. We were in the face of the Iranians in the '70s trying to force family planning on the shah, and that was one of the things that gave support to the ayatollah.”

Right now, Mosher said, family planning materials — contraception, abortion devices or sex education — are not being sent into Iraq.

However, “it's early,” Mosher said.

USAID official Alfonso Aguilar confirmed that so far, his organization is not promoting family planning in Iraq.

“Right now, we are working to restore basic health services,” he said.

But as for the future, he said, “I wouldn't venture to say.”

USAID's Request for Programs for Iraq, an application provided to groups that want U.S. funding to aid Iraqis, includes a section for “Family Planning and Population Assistance Activities.”

Since the Bush administration came into office, political appointees at USAID have reoriented the agency.

“USAID's HIV/AIDS programs now focus on promoting abstinence and delaying the onset of sexual activity and, when appropriate, the use of condoms,” wrote Dr. Anne Peterson, USAID assistant administrator for global health, in the Washington Times on April 6. “In Uganda, where HIV prevalence rates have gone from 15% to 5%, USAID's analysis has shown that abstinence education and the involvement of faith-based organizations have been among the keys to reducing infection levels.”

“It's called ABC,” Aguilar said. “Abstinence, behavioral change, condoms if and when necessary.”

He said USAID is committed to the Mexico City policy reinstituted by Bush, which forbids foreign aid money for abortion, but admitted groups that promote abortion could get American money for their other programs.

The Population Research Institute reported Aug. 14 that Afghan women its associates interviewed told some disturbing stories.

“Many of the women interviewed had just returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan,” it said. “They reported abortion campaigns led by United Nations-funded aid organizations operating inside refugee camps. … A high percentage of the women returning from Pakistan — 25% — reported that they had been subjected to abortion or sterilization procedures while in refugee camps there. … Not one woman stated that abortion or contraception services were wanted or needed, indicating a strong likelihood that abortions performed in Pakistan refugee camps were done without adequate informed consent.”

Mosher said the U.N. Population Fund has “mobile obstetrics units in Iraq.”

Ruse noted the organization's refugee kits contain the “morning-after pill,” which can cause abortions, as well as an abortion device, the manual vacuum aspirator. U.N. Population Fund officials have long claimed the aspirators are used to complete botched abortions only.

Geraldine Hemmings, director of communications for Aid to the Church in Need, said her organization is helping Iraqis regardless of religion.

“We think it's very important to support and uphold organizations that conform to the Church's teachings,” she said.

She said promotion of activities “destructive of society itself” such as family planning would anger both Christians and Muslims in the country.

“People on all sides are going to be very upset,” she said. Aid groups active in Bosnia promoted family planning there, she said, “a year or two after the conflict.”

Walten Mirza, president of the Assyrian Church of St. George in Chicago who left Iraq 25 years ago, said many Christians and Muslims in Iraq would accept contraception but not abortion. But “Muslims in rural areas might be very angry over contraception,” he said.

Bishop Ibrahim N. Ibrahim of the Chaldean Diocese of St. Thomas the Apostle in Southfield, Mich., said the Iraqi people would not accept abortion. “Christians are against these things and the Muslims are against them, too,” he said.

Beyond family planning and abortion, some Catholics worry other negative attitudes now so prominent in the West with the decline of Christianity could be foisted on Iraq. Pope John Paul II in his World Day of Peace Message on Jan. 1, 2001, said Western models “detached from their Christian origins” and are “often inspired by an approach to life marked by secularism and practical atheism and by patterns of radical individualism.”

Though the State Department had been handling a “Future of Iraq” project, on Jan. 20, Bush issued an executive order establishing an Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance headed by retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner at the Pentagon. This office could set policies on large cultural issues.

“We would like to see the Pentagon handle the reconstruction and not the State Department,” Ruse said approvingly.

The Pentagon did not respond to the Register's request to learn about the office's Iraq plans.

Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, on Feb. 11 outlined the administration's priorities in reconstructing Iraq before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“First, we will demonstrate to the Iraqi people and to the world that the United States wants to liberate Iraq, not to occupy,” he said. “Second, we must eliminate Iraq's chemical and biological weapons [and] its nuclear program. … Third, we must also eliminate Iraq's terrorist infrastructure and its ties to terrorism. Fourth, [we must] support and safeguard the territorial integrity of Iraq. … [The] United States does not support Iraq's disintegration. And fifth, to begin the process of economic and political reconstruction, working to put Iraq on a path to become prosperous and free.”

Joseph A. D'Agostino writes from Washington, D.C.