Letter: Action on Libya

The circumstances in which the United Kingdom will engage in some form of military conflict can never be predicted with accuracy. The prospect of it happening in Libya (your report, 1 March) fills me with foreboding.

It also makes me wonder again about the purpose of the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War. Its main raison d'tre is to see what lessons can be learned from the intervention there; the preparation for the battles, internal Cabinet discussions, the subsequent carnage after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime.

Yet before Chilcot has even reported there is talk of a no-fly zone over another Arab state, and co-operation with allies to quell the Gaddafi regime. The case for this is that he might turn with brutality and venom against sections of his own people.

Yet if this principle was accepted, the case for military intervention against Iraq would have been overwhelming long before the weapons of mass destruction controversy. It was widely known that Saddam Hussein had brutally suppressed large sections of the Kurdish population.

Libya is important in an economic sense to the West and to the Middle East states. But what is happening there remains a civil conflict in the 1990s and beyond. There is a strong case for United Nations negotiators to go to Libya and see if there is any prospect of negotiation and reconciliation between not just the two sides but the various tribes.

But for Prime Minister David Cameron to put the case for military action this early shows a total disregard for the lessons of modern history.

Bob Taylor

Shiel Court

Glenrothes, Fife