Madam, - The fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, with that country now destroyed - and very likely to fragment into three parts - should be a time to reflect on the false justification of that war.
Iraq did not threaten the United States. Iraq was not involved in the 9/11 attacks. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. That Iraq's former leader is dead is no testimony to any good brought about by that invasion or by that continuing war. Saddam may have been a bad man but the "coalition" has killed more Iraqis that Saddam ever did.
That the killing of academics, of young Sunni or Shia men, of judges, of civilians in markets or in mosques, is escalating; that these deaths may reflect, not "civil war" but, rather, the activities of death-squads intent on fragmenting that country; that there are a large number of mercenaries operating in Iraq, without any oversight, possibly intent on fomenting "civil war"; that the current puppet government of Iraq has agreed to hand over Iraq's oil to US companies under a highly irregular profit share agreement - none of this penetrates the smug indifference of the mainstream Western media.
Most of the normal people of Ireland, of the UK, of Europe, of the world, would be outraged if the truth of the Iraq conflict were told. Many already are. Iraq has been destroyed - not in the interest of "democracy", nor of "freedom", nor of destroying "WMDs", but rather, with deliberate intent, to deliver, amid bloody and painful "birth-pangs", a "new Middle East", in the words of Condoleeza Rice.
The Iraqi people were not asked what they wanted when the invasion took place. The people of the Middle East have not been asked if they want a "new Middle East". The decision to invade Iraq was taken by the Bush administration, supported by Tony Blair - and, as has become clear from the famous "Downing Street memo", the British administration knew the US was making its intelligence reports fit a pre-arranged policy of invasion. The current drumbeat for war against Iran can be seen as further evidence of the US policy to change the Middle East.
Those of us who like American values and culture, who respect American people, and who do not wish to be labelled "anti-American" cannot support what the present American administration has done. This administration has not advanced the cause of peace, it has not enhanced the security of the US, and it has made the world more unsafe for all. It is time for the friends of America to stand up bravely and say to our friends that we will not support what they are doing, that we will not allow rendition flights through Shannon; that we will not profit from the destruction and misery of others; that the war was - and still is - wrong. - Yours, etc,
GERRY MOLLOY, Collins Avenue, Dublin 9.
Madam, - There has been a long, pedantic tennis match, consisting of tedious lobs and volleys between fellow correspondents on this page for a number of weeks now, disputing estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians who have died since the start of what your Editorial correctly calls the "quagmire without end in Iraq".
In the latest attempt to score a point, Dermot Meleady (March 21st) compares the Lancet's 2004 figure of 98,000 with the 24,000 estimate by the Iraqi Living Conditions Survey. In my opinion, that's either 98,000 or 24,000 lives too many squandered on what your Editorial rightly calls an "impossible project" which was "incompetent beyond belief". (In any event, in a war situation such as this, endeavouring to arrive at conclusive casualty casualties is an abortive pursuit.)
Now we find ourselves at a point where President Bush still has the effrontery to seek another $100 billion to continue this doomed adventure, wants it "without strings and without delay" and even threatens to veto any legislation that might seek to impose conditions.
The entire war, except in the mind of the most myopic and dishonest neo-conservative, has been an unmitigated failure. Iraq is more unstable than ever.
As the former American ambassador and academic Peter W. Galbraith stated in his 2006 book The End Of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End, "the Iraq war has failed to serve a single major US foreign policy objective. It has not made the United States safer; it has not advanced the war on terror; it has not made Iraq a stable state; it has not spread democracy to the Middle East and it has not enhanced US access to oil".
Furthermore, given Bush's dogged determination to continue both this farce and to pursue the possibility of unleashing an even bloodier one in Iran, the world as a whole is indeed a grimmer place. - Yours, etc,
DAVID MARLBOROUGH, Kenilworth Park, Dublin 6w.