SO Tony Blair disputes UN secretary General Kofi Annan's claim that the war in Iraq was illegal.

Blair alleges that containment wasn't working and yet even he is forced to acknowledge that there were no weapons of mass destruction.

Isn't the absence of weapons of mass destruction clear evidence that containment was working?

The Government claims that before the troops went in everyone agreed with his professed analysis. Strange, then, that before the war started I, along with many others, was able to buy books by former weapons inspectors refuting the Bush/Blair claims that Iraq had any stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

Now we are told we have to fight the good fight against terrorism in Iraq, while trying to forget that before Bush and Blair sent in the troops there wasn't a terrorism problem in Iraq.

No attempt has been made during this "liberation" to record how many Iraqis have been killed or injured since US and British troops went in to remove the weapons of mass destruction that were not there. Unofficial estimates suggest tens of thousands of casualties.

I suspect that if such figures were available, and proved to be directly compared with the number of dead and injured in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's last year in power, the list would give us all pause for thought.

Christian Vassie,

Blake Court,

Wheldrake,

York.

Updated: 11:32 Tuesday, October 05, 2004