WAR AGAINST IRAQ: IN any war, it is the children who are affected first, and in the worst possible ways. UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, knows from working in conflict situations around the world that children's survival, health, emotional state and education are all put at severe risk.

For Iraq's 12 million children who have grown up under the effects of 12 years of economic sanctions and poor governance, war will be catastrophic.

UNICEF has been racing to bolster the strength of Iraq's children, providing hundreds of tonnes of high nutrient foods.

Working closely with the Iraqi Ministry of Health, UNICEF has provided more than 1,000 metric tonnes of high-energy biscuits and therapeutic milk, distributed at 63 nutrition centres throughout the country. UNICEF also stepped up its routine immunisation programme, vaccinating four million children against measles and polio, diseases that can spread rapidly when populations are displaced.

Over a period of ten days earlier this month, every effort was made to reach every single child not previously vaccinated, in what has become a critical race against time.

With two out of every three deaths in Iraq caused by diarrhoea and respiratory infections, a safe supply of clean water is crucial to child survival.

But a quarter of Iraq's population is already denied this and for the remainder, the water supply is now at great risk of being disrupted.

With the war in Iraq, the needs of children there are urgent. Just £25 will provide enough therapeutic feeding for 350 children, while £50 could help save the lives of 300 children suffering from cholera or dysentery by treating them with oral rehydration salts.

Donations, payable to UNICEF, can be sent to: UNICEF Children of Iraq Appeal, PO Box 1, 800, Sheffield, South Yorkshire. - Louis Coles, Regional Fundraising Manager (North East), UNICEF.

I WAS reading a booklet the other day which was published in 1941.

It contained two quotations which I feel are appropriate and interesting at the present time.

The first was from George Washington, first President of the United States, and said: "If we are wise, let us prepare for the worst. There is nothing that will produce a speedy and honourable peace, as a state of preparation for war; and we must either do this, or lay our account to a patched up inglorious peace, after all the toil, blood and treasure we have spent."

The second was by the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Herbert Honsley Henson, dated 1932, and said: "There is no factor more important for the peace and prosperity of mankind than thoroughly good relations between the members of the English-speaking family, gathered in the two camps of the (then) British Empire and the United States of America. - MA Hedley, Crook.

AT 70, I can remember the Second World War, and my father and most of my relations fought in it; I also remember that the Americans were our allies, and what that alliance cost them.

So, despite Mr Potts' suspicions (HAS, Mar 15) I am neither juvenile, nor pacifist, nor anti-American; but I am opposed to the policy of their current President.

Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a murderer, and his country would be much better without him; but who gave George Bush the mandate to remove him by force, at the cost of who knows how many lives? Not the UN.

Who is next on his list of disposable tyrants, and will he remove them by force as well?

War may sometimes be a last appalling necessity, as it was in 1939; but here it seems to be Mr Bush's preferred option, and I agree with the Bishop of Durham that, as things are, an attack on Iraq is not morally justified. - Rev TJ Towers, Langley Park.

WELL, it's been a great week in the House of Commons. Tony Blair gave a magnificent performance of his self-penned piece, Bloody Murder Masquerading as Morality, and we all await next week's showing, How Bombing is Good for the Welfare of Your Country, a work which borrows heavily from certain American texts.

However, both of these promise to be topped by his forthcoming rendition of the all-time classic, War is Peace and Peace is War. A star is born. Coming to a country near you. - Dean Clementson, Darlington.

FRANCE has done the world a favour. It has laid bare the stark choice facing the world - either a UN-directed and controlled process of enforcing Iraq's disarmament or carte blanche for US imperialism.

The truth is that the planes that were flown into the twin towers were made in the US and so was the anthrax that sowed panic when small samples were mailed to prominent politicians.

Everything that is needed to equip a modern, medium-sized army can be bought in the US by mail order or over the counter.

Terrorists do not need outside suppliers. For many Labour Party members Tony Blair's association with President Bush places him with some unpleasant characters, including at various times, General Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and a whole gallery of faded and discredited dictators and stooges the world over.

His particular friend is Madeleine Albright who considered that the lives of 500,000 Iraqi children was 'a price worth paying'.

And outside Parliament his outrageous warmongering has had its effect. From being at the time of election a popular Prime Minister, he is now confronted with the biggest anti-war protest movement in the history of British politics.

Not for nothing is it said: "Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad." - James Fitzpatrick, Gateshead.

ON the issue of Iraq, George Bush and Tony Blair have both shown genuine leadership qualities, as well as an admirable grasp of the ethical issues involved.

The main issue is that in countries where policies amounting to genocide are being perpetrated, the international community has a duty to intervene. - T Kelly, Crook.