Madam, - Much has been made of President George W. Bush's determination to "finish his father's business in the Gulf".
Here are the words of President George Bush Snr in an address to the UN General Assembly on October 1st, 1990: "We have a vision of a new partnership of nations that transcends the Cold War. A partnership based on consultation, cooperation, and collective action, especially through international and regional organisations. A partnership united by principle and the rule of law and supported by an equitable sharing of both cost and commitment. A partnership whose goals are to increase democracy, increase prosperity, increase the peace, and reduce arms."
The title of the address, "The UN: World Parliament of Peace", may seem today more ironic even than its content. Yet let us hope and pray that George Bush Jnr will attend to this aspect of his father's business when the current crisis has been resolved by force of arms. - Yours, etc.,
ALEX CHISHOLM, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.
Madam, - We are often asked "Where were you on 9/11?" At work, I watched in disbelief, then horror as thousands of innocent people were slaughtered in a series of acts of complete evil. I shared the depression that befell us all. I cried for those innocent victims, their families, and their nation.
I didn't know any of the victims. I've never been to the US, yet I still suffer whenever I recall those images. Like Auschwitz, Dresden and Hiroshima, these memories are indelible warnings of man's capacity for evil. They help us recognise it every time we see it.
Armed with those images, I now know that an act of great evil is going to take place very soon. Unlike 9/11, I know the names of the perpetrators, what they're going to do, even where they are right now. I could probably pick up the phone and call them. I could name them if asked - in fact most people probably could. I can plan where to be when the terror starts, what to wear, the snacks to eat, and where to put the TV remote control.
I take all of this personally, because I know some of the intended victims. Like hundreds of Irish healthcare workers, I worked at the Irish-run Ibn Al-Bitar hospital in Baghdad. Our interpreters were fine Iraqi women on whom we relied to help us care for the patients.
I particularly remember Gladys and Jacklyn, two Iraqi Christians who were free to practice their religion in Iraq's secular society. There was Sajeda, a strikingly beautiful woman, newly wed in 1987 and looking forward to her new life. Hala Usama was a jovial woman, remembered for the way she lovingly maintained her ancient green VW Beetle at great expense. Not to forget Selwa (Arabic for "Joy") Nagham, Raya and Aseel. Leila, whose mother was Irish, spoke English with a thick Belfast accent. For her the Arabic "salaam alaykum" (peace to you) became "how's about ye?" in English. Like the innocents in the Twin Towers, these are blameless, ordinary women trying to live ordinary lives in happiness and with dignity.
If anyone had useful information in advance of 9/11, the authorities could have been told, and the lives of the innocent could have been saved. Any failure to save those lives would have been forgivable.
Since "the authorities" have now become the protagonists of the war on Iraq, to whom can I turn so that my innocent friends and former colleagues can get the protection they deserve? With 9/11, Al Qaeda achieved much more than we might think - they dragged Western civilisation to their level. I'm afraid some of us offered too little resistance. - Yours, etc.,
PEARSE STOKES, Pembroke Gardens, Dublin 4.
Madam, - Has it finally come to this? Within days a grand coalition of three English-speaking western countries (the United States, Britain and Australia) will send their troops (predominantly Christian) into Iraq to overthrow an Arab regime, without the support of the United Nations Security Council.
Am I living in the 19th or 21st century? Over 150 years ago, what is about to be attempted was rightly referred to as gunboat diplomacy. How else can this adventure be possibly seen in the Islamic Arab world, as anything but a 21st-century crusade against a sovereign Arabic State? Make no mistake about it: that is how this war will be portrayed by Islamic fundamentalists to their followers.
Given the technological superiority of arms possessed by the United States and their allies, this war may well be short, with the minimum number of casualties.
However, even in the event of a swift victory, Iraq will have to be occupied and pacified. That pacification will have to be enforced by English-speaking Westerners. I fear that in the long term the Western World, and more particularly the United States, Britain and Australia, may yet reap the whirlwind. - Yours, etc.,
PAT BURKE, Rathsallagh Avenue, Shankill, Co Dublin.
Madam, - I know it is deeply unpopular to say so,but I think that the US and the UK are right to invade Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. It is unfortunate that the UN could not form a united front but its failure to do so should make us all question how suitable that institution is for dealing with the immediacy of terrorism and with dictators such as Saddam.
Anti-war politicians and activists are horrified that the will of the UN Security Council is being ignored. Instead, it seems, they would prefer to see Resolution 1441, which they all unequivocally endorsed, being treated as a joke by Saddam. The inspections by themselves were not working and anyone who says otherwise is unrealistic. Does anybody seriously believe that Saddam was more pressurised by Hans Blix's magnifying glass than by the 400,000 Anglo-American forces breathing down his neck?
It is too easy to dismiss President George W. Bush as a war-mongering idiot. He is doing what we expect and need the leader of the world's only superpower to do: protecting the world from danger as best he can. We cannot continue to live in a situation where the only way that we know the true nuclear and chemical capabilities of somebody like Saddam is when he uses such weapons against one of his many enemies. I think that Bush and Tony Blair deserve credit for showing the likes of Saddam that their days of dealing with a complacent West are at an end. - Yours, etc.,
DECLAN CASHIN, Callan Road, Kilkenny.
Madam, Sincere congratulations are due to Robin Cook who, in his resignation speech on Monday, said what many of us have been thinking and feeling but have not been adequately able to express. If he, privy to all that gives Britain and Mr Blair reason for engaging in this war, is opposed to it, then we should all be opposed to it.
Moral courage over office is in short supply. Other politicians might usefully take note. - Yours, etc.,
BRENDAN HENDERSON, Cabinteely Close, Dublin 18.
Madam, - The Taoiseach and Government have a way out of their self-made dilemma over Shannon. Refuse the use of the airport for military refuelling but offer Shannon now to the UN as a stop-over in its postwar reconstruction of Iraq. - Yours, etc.,
LELIA DOOLAN, Kilcolgan, Co Galway.
Madam, - I wonder who history will remember as the "Butcher of Baghdad". - Yours, etc.,
DAVID O'DONOGHUE, University of Limerick, Castletroy, Co Limerick.