ALL wars are messy affairs but Tony Blair and the Conservatives wanted this unnecessary war against Iraq for reasons they still struggle to justify.

We should remember the world community through the United Nations had Saddam Hussein safely under control, with inspectors actively monitoring his activities. Sanctions and diplomatic pressures, so successful against other despotic regimes, were driven aside by Tony Blair and the Tories as they raced to war.

Up to 10,000 innocent Iraqi women and children may have been killed by our forces and their allies and not a single weapon of mass destruction has yet been found. Now their second case for war on moral grounds is also falling apart. The hatred and anger being created abroad will live as a threat to us and our children for many years to come.

When you next see a Labour or Conservative advocate for this war grinning back at you, take their words with a pinch of salt and think seriously about their judgement in having put our own young soldiers in such a legally doubtful position fighting for control of another country in difficult circumstances.

Alec Featherstone,

Outgang Road,

Pickering.

...IT is ironic that the capital of Iraq, Baghdad, means city of peace. The greater irony, if not tragedy, is that the American-led forces entered Iraq as liberators from an oppressive regime and were, for a time, largely welcomed as such.

They stayed as conquerors, becoming in the process oppressors.

It is time to withdraw the coalition forces and replace them with UN peacekeepers from Islamic nations such as Pakistan, Syria and Egypt until the Iraqi people can choose their own government and end our involvement in the whole deplorable exercise.

Terence Myles Cullen,

Vernon Close,

Bishopthorpe,

York.

...FOR publishing a falsehood a newspaper editor gets the push whilst for propagating the lie that the war in Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to world peace, a Prime Minster and a President still have their jobs.

They must however be hoping that their respective electorates are not as unforgiving as Trinity Mirror shareholders...

Richard Lamb,

Greystoke Road,

York.

Updated: 10:06 Wednesday, May 19, 2004