Letters to the Editor

Israel is currently in violation of 32 UN resolutions dating back to 1968. Turkey has violated 24 resolutions, and Morocco 17. However, rather than punish them, the US actually rewards them by giving them billions of dollars in aid each year.

Countries such as France, Germany, Russia and China were against a US invasion of Iraq because they did not want to abandon the precious multilateralism which we have built up over more than 50 years.

Withdrawing from the 1972 anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, rejecting the protocol to the bioweapons treaty, refusing to participate in the International Criminal Court, abandoning the Kyoto protocol and threatening pre-emptive warfare are all products of U.S. nationalism and unilateralism introduced by the current administration.

I do not deny that the regime controlling Iraq needed to be addressed appropriately, but what I do reject is the double standard with which the US dishes out so-called justice.

Yousef Walker, St. Christopher's Drive, Addingham

SIR - In reply to Darren Park's statement that there is no middle ground, "Decide or join the enemy". I feel that he missed out on the essence of my "weak-kneed rantings", as he so eloquently called them. My point was that we are punishing an entire nation to capture one man.

He seems to imply that Saddam Hussein and the millions of innocents in Iraq are one and the same thing. Such a block view of people and war is extremely dangerous.

My "side," as he put it, is not that of any country or people but rather is that of justice.

I ask the people of Bradford to call upon their consciences and say a prayer for the innocents of Iraq and indeed the world.

Adam Walker, St Christophers Drive, Addingham

SIR - Letters to the T&A refer to Bush and Blair in the contexts of the war against Iraq. Have you forgotten us colonists Down Under? We too have a PM, John Howard, who is brown-nosing Bush every chance he gets. Bush says "Jump" and Howard replies, "How high, sir?".

Doesn't anybody care that more than 80 per cent of Australians said they were against war without UN backing?

Sandy Parkinson, Grigg Place, Hilton, Western Australia

SIR - As a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for more than 50 years, may I respectfully urge the Prime Minister to consider what I believe Almighty God is saying to us at this time. I believe:

(1) That Britain stands under the judgement of a righteous God because of the enormous and grave decline in spiritual and moral standards which has taken place over the past half century, and because of legislation which has been enacted, largely by the present Government, which ignores the clear teaching of the Word of God in the Bible.

(2) That Iraq also, and many other nations, are equally under the judgement of God.

(3) That God is able to deal adequately with nations in rebellion against Him, as is amply testified by the Scriptures and by more modern history.

(4) That in these circumstances the clear duty of the Prime Minister - the more so since he is a professing Christian - is not to presume to stand in the place of God as Judge of the nations, but to take the lead in calling the nation to repentance, and in praying to God to have mercy and to spare us from the judgement which we so richly deserve.

Reverend Douglas E Legg, Farmstead Road, Bradford 10.

SIR - In my lifetime this country of ours has been actively involved in five wars and now here comes a sixth.

Not only have these wars led to the loss of thousands of lives, but they have placed an immense financial burden the citizens.

When will it stop?

Many years ago Dwight D Eisenhower stated: "Indeed, I think that people want peace so much so that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it". So when is this going to happen?

Not, I fear, in my lifetime!

Mike Stocks, The Coppies, Delph Hill, Wyke.

SIR - Having served in the army I have been involved in a conflict or two myself, and thoroughly agree with Mike Priestley's comments in North of Watford (March 15).

While I agree with most people that Saddam Hussein is a truly despicable man who has murdered thousands of his own people, I do not agree with Britain backing the USA in a war against him.

Is Tony Blair the prime minister of Great Britain, a sovereign nation, or does he see himself as governor of a US state?

We have enough problems here with (as Mike says) the NHS falling to pieces, education going down the pan, not enough police officers, nurses and doctors. All this plus an influx of "asylum seekers", a lot of whom seem to be young, fit, single males of military age. Are they Saddam's "fifth column" or simply refugees?

It is time the government of Britain (whoever it is in power) sorted out the problems in Britain and stopped being lap dogs to the Americans - a country which, by the way, was the first to deploy "weapons of mass destruction" and turns a blind eye to the Israelis' own terror campaign, because it is "politically expedient" to do so.

Just because the Yanks want to be the playground bully, Tony Blair doesn't have to cling to their shirt tails.

Mike McCunniff, Malton Street, Halifax

SIR - Re Mike Priestley (North of Watford, March 15). I am not in favour of any war, much less this one. It is an admission of failure, but it has to be said that after 12 years of talking, there was not much left to talk about.

Saddam Hussein is a "mad dog". Any sane individual would long ago have given up treading the path he has gone.

Duncan-Smith, who I have never regarded as of any importance, hit the nail on the head, when in a recent interview he said, "If I were to learn, in a few years' time, that one of Saddam's weapons had been detonated in an English town, and that I could have prevented it, I would never forgive myself."

Mike Priestley wants to think about this. He has a grandchild, and this sort of thing could well happen. An unpleasant episode in international affairs must be drawn to its end.

Jack Mawson, Grove House Crescent, Bradford 2.

SIR - Mike Priestley is free to sit in his easy chair and be critical of war in Iraq.

We must be sorry for those "poor Iraqi" people. Of course we should. But anti-war protesters were very thin on the ground when thousands of "poor Kurds" were being killed?

The UN is indeed a corrupt Tower of Babel, as someone has suggested, with tinpot dictators trying to look like statesmen.

If the so-called "United Nations" had acted over the years - 12 to be exact - maybe our troops would still be at home.

F Dickinson, Larkfield Road, Rawdon.

SIR - Mike Priestley stamps his little foot shouting "Mummy I hate that Tony Blair. He won't stop his war because I say so."

Elsewhere in the playground tantrums are threatened if Tony doesn't stand up to that horrible bully Saddam.

So the grown-ups have to sort things out by voting for Members of Parliament who decide what to do for the best.

If we do not like what they have done "in our name" we can vote for somebody else next time.

This is called demo-cra-cy!

Brian Holmans, Langley Road, Bingley.

SIR - Saddam Hussein was armed and funded to the teeth by the West and while he served western interests no-one cared what he did.

This war on Iraq, whether for oil or regime change, is illegal under international law. The slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians would be a violation of article 6 of the Nuremberg tribunal.

I believe Terry Rooney MP, right, has lost his backbone of morality, betraying our decency and integrity by not voting against the war in the House of Commons.

I believe anybody with a family and educated background would be against this unjust war. I also believe anybody adopting a policy on war needs to look themselves in the mirror as to what their intentions or agenda really is towards a Muslim nation.

Mohammed Yaqub Ismail, Lower Rushton Road, Bradford 3.