THE current bloody chaos in Iraq is due to the political and power vacuum that the coalition (the UK and US) created when they dismantled the Iraqi administration and put nothing in its place.

The coalition seized the oil production and also privatised the Iraqi financial sector in what is effectively a robbery from the people of Iraq. No wonder they don't want a democratic government with the power to re-nationalise these assets.

So now the Iraqis have risen up in rebellion over what is in fact an illegal occupation that resulted from an illegal war, that was not authorised by the UN.

Effectively they want the democracy that the coalition is denying them in the terrible occupation that is a disaster.

The paid apparatchiks of the British Government and their apologists in the media labelled the two million who marched in London against the war as "appeasers".

Now they have the blood of babies, children and civilians on their hands, as does indeed Michael Howard the leader of the Tory Party who still supports the "pre-emptive strike" and who enthusiastically backed the war, and it is not going to wash off either in this life, or the life that lies beyond.

Chris Clayton,

Hempland Drive,

York.

THE current round of slaughter in Iraq has been triggered by the closure of a newspaper critical of the current regime.

What a way to prepare for democracy!

Some comfort though in knowing that the US will not be closing down any avenue of news distribution in the UK. The BBC is tamed of its mildly disapproving elements and the rest of the mainstream news channels rolled over long ago.

Perhaps global capitalism will succeed in Iraq, as it has here and in the US, in persuading the majority of the electorate that voting is pointless. No better illustration of that than the cringing collaborators comprising this New Labour Government.

Roger Westmoreland,

The Oval,

Pocklington.

Updated: 10:49 Wednesday, April 14, 2004