IT is not contested that the USA and Britain have helped to arm Iraq in the past. Tony Blair has reminded us of Saddam Hussein's responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, but little to remind us of where his weapons came from.

The majority of these deaths occurred during the Iraq/Iran war, when the West lost little sleep as Saddam helped suppress Islamic Fundamentalism.

Surely we're intelligent enough to have the full story. Like others around the world today, Saddam is a brutal dictator, but was he not a brutal dictator at the time of the Iran-Iraq war and in 1988 when he gassed 5,000 Kurds after which, incidentally, the USA increased its support?

The United Nations was set up after two wars involving the worst carnage imaginable to try and prevent a repeat. To this end the permanent members of the Security Council were given a veto so that there had to be unanimous support for any resolution. This would require great restraint from those keen to implement a resolution for whatever reason, including war, making war less likely.

After Russia, the USA has used its veto most, mainly to avoid plans to help bring peace between Israel and Palestine. France has used its veto this time and is being castigated for it. John Major once said we should condemn a little more and understand a little less. I don't go along with that. France has its interests to protect, as do all countries, and it votes accordingly. If things were simply as Tony Blair, and increasingly the BBC, put it, I would castigate the French.

Nobody suggests Bush or Blair want to steal Iraqi oil, but, as pro-war journalist Ann Lesley put it, we wouldn't be taking this action if Iraq just grew carrots. We, or certainly Bush, require the oil in friendly hands, at the right price, with friendly business structures in place. It's now being revealed Bush's true ambitions are for only a periphery role allocated to the United Nations in nation building after the war as he carves up the business and allocates the lion's share of the contracts to their multi-national companies. We all form a view regarding the war and I would hope a free democracy like ours can afford to let us all decide our position given true and full information.

So, come on, Tony Blair, let's have less economy with the truth.

M W Greenhalgh

Shaftesbury Avenue

Lostock