WE read with horror and disgust the words of Iain Dale urging British businesses to make sure they get in quick to win the lucrative contracts to repair Iraq after Bush's bombers have reduced it to rubble (Evening Press, February 6, 2003).

This is an issue of not just "spectres" but "vampires" at the feast - self-absorbed capitalists who see no further than the making blood-money out of a totally unnecessary war, "fat cats" who worship neither Allah nor God, but Mammon.

Maybe, Mr Dale, you should incite British undertakers to follow suit - surely they, too, mustn't be allowed to miss out on all the potential business a war must inevitably bring.

Or would that trouble your conscience?

Dale and Zara Oates,

Constantine Avenue, York.

...IAIN Dale warns that "we" may miss out on the benefits of post-war reconstruction, after a military victory in Iraq. He is right, but not in the way he thinks.

It is clear that it is not only the people of Iraq who will lose from this unjustified war, but also the British who will pay through the continued decline of health, education and transport services.

C Barrett,

Grants Avenue, York.

Updated: 11:07 Friday, February 07, 2003