Hear All Sides: Iraq

Firstly, the country with the most weapons of mass destruction is not Iraq, but is, in fact, the US. Iraq has carried out atrocities against the Kurds but each day the Turkish Air Force performs bombing operations against the Kurds which are unopposed by Britain which is presently using British taxpayers' money to build dams that will flood the Kurdish homelands.

America claims Saddam is developing weapons but refuses to reveal the evidence to her allies.

In paying back the arms manufacturers who donated to the Bush election campaign, America has reinitiated the Star Wars programme which, along with its foreign polices, has created greater worldwide instability than any tin pot dictator ever could.

The true purpose of the Star Wars programme is not as a defensive shield for America against those dictatorships, but as offensive space borne weaponry to be used against any nation which dares oppose its foreign policies.

We are all concerned about peace around the world, but when I look on the Internet and find so many American political and religious leaders and writers praising and claiming the existence of an American empire, it becomes difficult to see Iraq as the threat. - CT Riley, Spennymoor.

F WEALAND misunderstands me (HAS, Aug 22); I did not claim that Iraq has no chemical weapons, more that the available evidence tells us Iraq's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction has been vastly reduced by up to 95 per cent.

According to Scott Ritter, former senior UN weapons inspector in Iraq and an American who served in the Gulf War, of the 819 long-range missiles Iraq once held, 817 are no longer in use. Two missiles could not be accounted for, but there's no way that Iraq has them.

Other arguments in favour of war are equally mendacious. The removal of Saddam Hussein is a laudable ambition, but we should not suppose that the war planners are overly concerned with the fate of the Kurds; Saddam Hussein was America's good friend during the 1980s, a period which included the gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja, in which 5,000 people died.

This is the heart of the matter, the hypocrisy that surrounds American adventures abroad. We cannot preserve peace by going to war, nor can we save the Iraqi people by bombing them. - Dean Clementson, Darlington.

JOHN Stephenson's response (HAS, Aug 27) to my letter regarding Iraq was so predictable.

George Bush is no 'warlord'. He wants a free, peaceful world and to get that he and Great Britain must free the globe of real, evil warlords like Saddam Hussein and other Middle Eastern madmen.

The Reverend seems to forget that Hussein murdered millions of his own people and probably has sponsored terrorism attacks on the West. - Christopher Wardell, Darlington.

REGIONAL GOVERNMENT

I DON'T really think the Tories should take a sermon on hypocrisy from the Liberal Democrats.

Not for nothing is the Liberal Democrat Party known as 'the home for the terminally bewildered'.

When it comes to almost any main policy issue, the Liberals change with the wind, depending on who they are trying to ingratiate themselves with.

The only coherent policy they have is in embracing a federalist European agenda, so it stands to reason that they are wedded to the concept of regional assemblies, regardless of the fact that these assemblies would be a centralising force that would leech power from below.

Pro-assembly campaigners may pedal the line that a regional assembly will bring power closer to the people and improve the plight of hard-done-to North-Easterners - in reality it will do neither.

The agenda for regional assemblies is costly, cumbersome and incoherent - and guess what - the Lib Dems love it! - Simon Cawte, Darlington.

EUROPE

I FIND Neil Herron's deeply cynical comments (HAS, Aug 24) about politics quite hypocritical.

He claims to be opposed to foreign interference in UK affairs yet tries to justify challenging our elected government through the European Court. What kind of patriotism is this? Flexible, of course.

His reference to Baldrick was quite funny but not in the way intended. The actor who plays Baldrick, Tony Robinson, just happens to be a member of the Labour Party's National Executive and is well known for his support for a more democratic and effective European Union. - Stuart Hill, Darlington.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

RECENT events have highlighted the need to bring back capital punishment for those convicted of child murders.

It is accepted that punishment of this nature cannot bring back the lives of the victims or take away the life-long grief of the parents of children.

Often the courts' verdicts are that the murder was carried out when the balance of mind was affected, etc, and psychiatric treatment should be carried out in a high security establishment.

After being restrained in such a hospital for a period of time, the murderer is then assessed as to whether the 'magic' has worked and whether he/she is fit to be released into the outside world.

It has been known that on occasions, a 'cured murderer' has been allowed out only to repeat their earlier actions by taking another innocent life.

There have been many murders and presumably there will be many more. However something must be done in an endeavour to save the lives of potential victims preyed upon by evil satanic minds.

I am confident that right-minded citizens of this country will support my views. - Ruth Rowe, Darlington.