Not many people relate America's international actions to the word "drunken."

But Peter Dula, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Iraqi representative, did last night when he spoke to about 20 people in Rackley Building in an event sponsored by Lambs among Lions, an extension of United Campus Ministry at Penn State.

"The United States of America is a mean, mean drunk who got drunk on a cup of war and staggered into Iraq, and now Iraq is a drunken mess too," he said.

MCC is a non-profit organization that works with non-governmental organizations in Iraq by giving resources for emergency response work, mentoring volunteers, organizing training workshops and funding other projects.

Dula has lived in Iraq since January, but he has since moved to Jordan.

Dula said Iraq's problems were because of American failures.

"It has degenerated into a lawless, anarchic place and it is our fault because of the sheer incompetence in the way that the mission was conducted -- forget that we shouldn't have been in there at all," he said.

Opening the floor to questions, Dula attempted to explain the uncertain future of Iraq.

Dula said the possibilities for Iraq, if the United States left, were that warlords would take control, neighboring countries like Syria or Iran would move in or the summit of Middle Eastern countries would figure out another possible solution. "Or we can incapacitate and destroy Iraq with more violence," he said sarcastically.

Penn State alumnus David Houck cited the British medical journal The Lancet as estimating the death toll in Iraq at more than 100,000, mostly women and children, when asking Dula how he felt about the civilian deaths.

"The number was awful when it was 1,600. It just shows the horror of it," he said.

As for what America could have done differently, Dula suggested preventing the nationwide looting, maintaining the Iraqi Army for security purposes and having more respect for the Geneva Convention's international laws.

Pushker Kharecha, a member of Amnesty International's Penn State chapter, added some more possibilities to this list.

"We could have not used indiscriminate weapons like cluster bombs and depleted uranium ... and we could've tried to reconstruct the nation in a genuine and sincere way," he said.

Dula attempted to conclude with a more optimistic sense of the Iraqi people. "People still get up in the mornings, go to the market, go to work ... there are people who are neither part of the insurgence nor explicitly victims," he said.

Houck, however, offered a more morbid sense of America's actions in Iraq.

"We've got blood on our hands -- at least [51] percent of us do," he said, in reference to Tuesday's election results.

Ruth Parrish, member of Lambs among Lions, said the speech was appropriate. "... Even though it's depressing, you need to think about it because we will have to deal with it for a while," she said.