PLEASE tell all our dear friends in Britain that the Americans are not interested in Iraq's oil.

We lost 3,000 members of our family to terrorism. This war is about security and our deepest fears.

Please understand we never want another 9/11.

That is what is driving this country. Never do we want to see hundreds of people hanging out of windows pleading for their lives before hundreds of floors collapsed below them.

This war is about preventing that ever happening again.

Iraq is encouraging and harbouring terrorists and do not believe for one second that anyone in Europe will be safe from terrorism if they do not participate in this war.

Extremists will target us all merely because we are free.

Laura Gibbon

Dumfries,

Virginia, USA.

...IN reply to Jeannette Wilson's letter (February 11). I don't recall Bush invading Canada in 1980 causing two million deaths.

Nor did he invade Mexico in 1991, raping women, looting and hanging young men from cranes in the streets.

He hasn't shot three members of his own family and he hasn't executed two members of the Senate on the White House lawn.

Neither has he sent tanks into Northern Montana to kill 150,000 people, nor slaughtered 100,000 Americans in Southern Texas with chemical weapons.

He hasn't destroyed dozens of villages. He hasn't fired 39 missiles into Cuba because he disagrees with its religion. If he had done these things, would people still like him to be president - or would they prefer him to be removed from office in case he became unstable and developed nuclear weapons?

Colin Henson,

Moorcroft Road,

Woodthorpe, York.

Updated: 10:33 Monday, February 17, 2003