ALL credit to Hugh Bayley for organising last week's meeting with Geoff Hoon, Secretary of State for Defence.

However, within days of that meeting the Evening Press reported Hugh's readiness to support US requests to use Fylingdales so long as 'protection' is extended to cover Britain as well as the USA.

It is hard to see a realistic chance of that ever being the case. In practice a viable defence would require a global anti-missile capability that does not yet exist and a semi-automated command system with ultimate control resting in US hands.

The most credible form of attack from so-called rogue states is likely to involve conventional high-explosives or biochemical devices of the type already deployed by terrorists in London and Tokyo.

It should be abundantly clear after the destruction of the World Trade Centre that terrorists have relatively low-cost options at their disposal and there will always be ways to bypass the sort of high-tech sci-fi envisioned in the US Missile Defence programme.

Support for Missile Defence is wholly misplaced and is a retreat into Cold War thinking, with its attendant risks.

Paul Kind,

Sefton Avenue,

York.

Updated: 11:47 Thursday, January 16, 2003