Letter: Blair no hero

It is crassly superficial to compare Saddam in Iraq with Hitler in Europe, or indeed Blair with Churchill.

There is ample evidence that Blair and Bush first decided to invade and then invented reasons for doing so. Having sent in UN inspectors to search for supposed weapons of mass destruction they withdrew them before they had finished.

Blair repeatedly lied to justify invasion, misrepresenting evidence provided by the security services as to the seriousness of the situation.

One example suffices; the Joint Intelligence Committee stated that Iraq that "may have hidden small quantities of chemical agencies and weapons". Blair translated this into "We know that he has stockpiles of major amounts of chemical and biological weapons."

The decision/reason order of attack was amplified by Paul Wolfowitz, then US Deputy Defence Secretary, thus: "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

Blair is indeed a war criminal.

Robert Dow

Ormiston Road

Tranent

Although Terry Duncan (Letters, 6 September) is in some doubt about whether Tony Blair should be brought to trial at the Hague as a war criminal, the evidence now seems clear enough.

Kofi Annan, who was Secretary General of the UN at the time, condemned the military attack on Iraq as illegal and there were no weapons of mass destruction. It now seems clear that one of the purposes of British involvement was Blair's desire to curry favour with George W Bush.

The suicide of Dr Kelly suggests that Mr Blair's parliamentary peers cannot be trusted to bring him to book.

A judicial decision by the International Court at the Hague would provide a fitting addendum to a fascinating political career.

(Dr) David Purves

Strathalmond Road

Edinburgh