Madam, - "I know of nobody in Washington that is planning military action on Iran. . . There is, as far as I know, no planning going on to make an attack on Iran." So says Tony Blair (World News, February 23rd).
He must be playing with words, wilfully ignorant or else blatantly lying. For it is inconceivable that the Pentagon and/or the CIA (in Virginia not "Washington") are not even making contingency plans for an attack on Iran.
It would be a dereliction of duty. Mr Blair would have been truthful had he merely asserted that no decision about such an attack has been made.
A recent EU document, written by the staff of Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, leads to a conclusion that Iran may need only two more years to produce its first crude nuclear bomb, which happens to be the time remaining to Mr Bush.
Rightly or wrongly, there is every chance that, failing diplomatic progress, Mr Bush - who has indicated in the past that he doesn't want to leave the Iran problem to his successor - will launch an attack on Iran's suspected nuclear sites. With Democrats in control of Congress and the Senate, with his own poll ratings in the doldrums and facing no re-election, he personally has nothing to lose (even if his party does). - Yours, etc,
TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin.