Archbishop Bashar Warda travelled to London this week to address a Westminster gathering on Iraq's declining Christian population and requesting further action by UK’s government. ‘Christians in Iraq do not have much time left without direct military action on the ground', the Archbishop of Irbil told UK peers and MPs. Iraq's Christian communities have declined dramatically since Saddam Hussein and he said air strikes were ‘not enough’ to defeat Islamic State militants. He ‘begged’ for Western troops to be deployed on the ground. The archbishop said, ‘As a Catholic I find it hard to say, but I want military action. There is no other way now'. He also addressed the Church of England's ruling General Synod. ‘What we are seeing is worse for the world than what happened in Afghanistan'. Former Cabinet minister John Gummer, now Lord Deben, said the archbishop's speech was an example of the ‘desperate dilemma the Christian community of Iraq is now in’