YORK Against The War's Bob Looker blames Britain and America for recent suicide bombings by Arab terrorists. He believes we provoked them with our military action in Iraq (Letters, May 23).
But the recent attacks were against two countries - Morocco and Saudi Arabia - which did not support the war, so there cannot have been a protest against it.
These attacks would have happened anyway, like the terrorist attacks against the United States, Kenya, Tanzania and Israel which occurred before the war.
Bob Looker is wrong to suppose that we could have protected ourselves from terrorism by ignoring the real risks posed by Saddam's regime in Iraq, which used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands of its own citizens and hundreds of thousands of people from neighbouring countries.
Thankfully, the war is over. It was shorter and there were fewer casualties than many feared. The UN Security Council has accepted a British and American proposal to lift UN sanctions against Iraq so the country can be rebuilt.
This will test whether we in the West are on the side of the Iraqi people. If we rise to the challenge, we will win friends in the Arab world. If we fail to do so, we will perpetuate conditions in which terrorism thrives.
Hugh Bayley MP,
(City of York),
House of Commons, London.
Updated: 10:43 Monday, June 02, 2003
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