THE editorial in the Evening Press on December 17 asks, with regard to the use of Fylingdales in Son of Star Wars, "what benefit will there be to Britain in housing the system?"

The US wants to sell to the UK the concept, erroneous in my opinion, that the UK will also be protected by the technology. It will be hugely expensive to us, as well as making the UK a prime target in any future war. I think the technology will fail under the onslaught of MIRV and dummy warheads.

For the UK to be "protected" anti-missile missiles will have to be stationed on UK soil, as any such in the US would arrive too late to be of much use. After the heroic efforts of the women of Greenham Common, can we really be going to allow a foreign missile system to be planted on our land?

This system is very much more to protect the US rather than us.

And then there's the expense: probably around £15 billion and rising. Now we know where the £5 billion per year Gordon Brown took out of people's pension funds is going: into a huge new arms race and a weapons program that will please the military industrial machine for decades to come. Not to mention an oil war in Iraq, when we need to be reducing oil dependence.

I still remember with horror the incineration of women and children in an Iraqi bunker during the last Gulf war.

I wonder if Tony Blair and his cabinet believe in pre-emptive absolution for their crimes in advance, as well as the pre-emptive war they want to wage.

Chris Clayton,

Hempland Drive, York.

Updated: 11:11 Thursday, December 19, 2002