THE reply to Andrea Hill ('Don't sell weapons to Libya, Tony', Letters, March 27) is that British weapons have been sold to other countries and used in senseless violence.

Saddam Hussein was sold huge amounts of weapons from America and Britain to fund the war against Iran.

It is time this country and America stopped pulling out bigger guns than everybody else.

You can't fight fire with fire because the original fire just becomes larger and fiercer and out of control. If the world is carrying out weapons inspections, then start with America and Britain.

The record in both countries for arms deals to devious leaders is high. America and Britain have fuelled most of the world's worst conflicts.

In this turbulent world weapons don't mean protection they only mean suffering and danger. Therefore, if Tony Blair is going to sell weapons it will be to dangerous people. Dangerous people are the only ones the likes of Tony Blair and George Bush deal with.

Yasmin Wooldridge,

Bishopthorpe Palace,

Bishopthorpe,

York.

...LET us welcome the apparently friendly relationships now existing between Libya and Britain - or at least between the two leaders.

Each believes his country has something to gain from it, and the more states we are not hostile towards the better for us all.

But the given reason for this change is that Libya has renounced its nuclear weapons intentions. This is excellent news.

But why only Libya? If this is a reduction to the threat to the world, why not also Britain?

To keep the ultimate power to destroy another country, and its unborn children, creates fear and enemies, especially when the man in charge of the country's defence, Geoff Hoon, says he would be prepared to use it.

But what about Israel? It is a small country, full of fear and hostile to nearly all its neighbours, and possessing a stock of nuclear weapons as part of its armaments, the fifth largest in the world. Would the world not be safer without these?

Joyce Pickard,

Saville Grove,

York.

Updated: 10:20 Wednesday, March 31, 2004