SIR - Several letters in your columns have assumed that the impending war with Iraq is about oil. The truth is that France, Russia and China have by far the largest potential oil contracts with Iraq.

Russia is Iraq's largest trading partner outside the Middle East. And France is by far the largest Western trading partner with Iraq (£425 million per annum). At a recent trade fair in Baghdad France was represented by 81 companies.

It was the current president of France who, as Prime Minister in the 1970s, negotiated a deal to build Iraq's first nuclear reactor.

As far as I know the United States buys no oil from the Middle East. It seems to me, therefore, that it is purely to protect their commercial interests that France, Russia and China seek to maintain the status quo in the Middle East by opposing a war to remove the regime in Baghdad.

Stuart Baker, Place St Michel, Etalle-Chantemelle, Belgium

SIR - Tony Blair says UN indecision is letting Saddam "off the hook." Now let's look at this "hook".

It was cast by an angler and a wangler, neither of which was within the law. They are now asking other people to help reel in the catch. Join them in their crime. Say non, nyet, nix, nein, no.

I say let the Arab world deal with Saddam, bring him down today. Not tomorrow - Today!

I say to the Western World deal with Bush and Blair, bring them down today. Not tomorrow - today!

And may the world continue to exist.

Trev Bromby, Sculcoates Lane, Hull.

SIR - I write in response to Ray Harrison's letter about e-mail access for troops in the Middle East. I have recently been given a website address which lets people contact troops in the Middle East via e-mail.

The address is www.bfpo.org.uk and you can send an e-mail which then gets printed as a letter, sealed and delivered.

Veronica Mitchell, Swallow Fold, Lower Grange, Bradford

SIR - If Adam Walker's weak-kneed rantings (T&A March 3) are anything to go by regarding the war on terrorism, homicide bombers, murderous dictators and nuclear psychopaths (yes you - North Korea!) then we should all lie back, do nothing and watch all that we've built be systematically torn down, painfully without lifting a single finger to stop it.

There are two sides, for Britain and America, or not. No middle ground.

Decide or join the enemy.

Darren Park, Brunswick House, Bingley.

SIR - Although perhaps it may not be the hottest ticket in town many of your readers will, no doubt, be interested in the consultations organised by the Learning and Skills Council which are designed to discuss the proposed merger between our city's university and college (T&A, March 3).

Having had the opportunity to teach and to study in both places I was distressed to read in the educational press the dire headline "Quality concerns could scupper plans for Bradford Multiversity"!

The article made much of the Quality Assurance Agency's rejection of the college's appeal against its poor assessment last year.

Yet I recall the excellent teaching there so I'm left to ponder whether the problem is elsewhere. Surely it can't be poor management, can it?

Sid Brown, Glenhurst Road, Shipley.

SIR - What has happened to the otherwise peaceful village of inner-Oakenshaw?

On a recent stay there I have witnessed (on most evenings) intimidating gangs of baseball-capped, under-aged youths congregating around the newsagents and service station drinking cans of alcohol and making a complete nuisance of themselves. Recently, graffiti has been daubed on walls and an elderly resident has suffered a broken window.

Shopkeepers and residents in the area need to stand up to these youths by giving them their marching orders back to the areas they have descended from, otherwise Oakenshaw village will suffer the same demise as other rundown areas in Bradford.

Susan Wall, Roydstone Road, Thornbury.

SIR - After readers have been able to assist Sid Brown I wonder if they can help to recall two poems from my youth.

The first one, in the inside cover of a schoolboy's book 60-odd years ago, I think was called The Sportsman. The poems were very much in the Victorian/Edwardian ideal, of a clean mind in a clean body a la Kipling/Newboult. The only verse I can recall now is:

Give me the man who never sneers

At women by the world neglected,

But sympathises and cheers

The lonely and the unprotected.

The second one, written in a similar vein, I feel ashamed that my memory has let me down so much, for I am sure it is a well-loved Victorian poem. The only two verses I recall are:

Life is real and life is earnest

And the grave is not its goal,

Dust thou art to dust returnest

Was not spoken of the soul.

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints in the sands of time.

Les Brotherton, Caroline Street, Saltaire.

SIR - How much longer do we have to put up with the sick and crude adverts on TV? I am referring to the "dogbreath" advert as highlighted in Mike Priestley's North of Watford (March 8).

Isn't it about time we had someone who could look at these adverts before they came on TV and also the foul language which appears in many TV programmes these days.

Geoff Brearley, Acre Drive, Bradford 2.

SIR - For Heaven's sake leave the Bingley Arts Centre/Jubilee Gardens site alone and concentrate on two areas. First if a new supermarket is needed then the Auction Mart, otherwise wasted and an eye-sore, is the perfect site.

Secondly, demolish the mess which is Myrtle Walk and build a new facility there. The new road can lead to more jobs, more shoppers, more restaurants, more life.

Geoff Innes, Holyoake Avenue, Bingley