Brazil's Catholic Church, the world's biggest, accused the United States on Thursday of using the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as the pretext for an "irresponsible" war on Iraq.
The Brazilian National Bishops Conference, which has a long history of supporting human rights, said the United States was motivated to attack Iraq by the hidden economic interests behind "the alleged war on terrorism."
The bishops conference is the most important Catholic group in Brazil, where most of the 175 million people belong to the Roman Catholic faith.
"The Sept. 11 attacks cannot serve as the pretext to reignite the flame of irresponsible bellicose action and to justify an arms race," the Bishops Conference said in a statement. "Economic interests that are not always explicit are hiding behind the alleged war on terrorism."
It said the estimates of the dead and wounded in any war were alarming, saying they would "generate new hate and revenge."
Like France and Germany, the Brazilian government has said it supports giving United Nations' arms inspectors more time to carry out their work of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.