Sarah Anne Wright; Seattle Times staff reporter

Four Washington residents, one from Seattle, are heading to Iraq on a mission of peace.

The sponsor, Voices in the Wilderness, or Voices, as the group calls itself, opposes economic sanctions it says harm ordinary Iraqis. It has sent about 50 peace-delegate groups to Iraq since 1996.

Its mission, it says, is to put a human face one other than Saddam Hussein’s on Iraq.

But as the threat of war against Iraq looms, this latest delegation faces a potentially more dangerous situation: putting U.S. citizens inside a war zone where they might be used as human shields.

Peace delegates said they go only as witnesses.

“Is the purpose here to be human shields in some way? The answer is no,” said participant David Berrian, of Seattle. “We want to personalize this.”