I AM writing in response to Rev Andy Kelso's letter. He compared Saddam to Hitler. Yes, Saddam may be as ruthless and unpleasant as Hitler but Saddam is not a credible, imminent military threat to either his neighbours or us here in the West.

So much is made of his weapons of mass destruction and this typifies the moral hypocrisy of the US and British governments who seem to have amnesia over the fact that we were the people who supplied him with weapons of mass destruction.

As Ralph Nader famously joked, the US is so certain of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as the US kept the receipts.

The US supplied Saddam with the blueprint for his first chemical warfare plan and we continued to supply him when he was at his most dangerous and after he had already committed the worst of the atrocities that Blair now sermonises about.

Saddam is evil and dangerous now, but he was evil and dangerous then when we continued to supply him with lethal weapons, knowing full well what they were being used for. But we wanted him as our friend (our customer) against Khomani.

Eleven months after the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1998, Baghdad was visited by Donald Rumsfeld and James Kelly to sell Saddam more weapons and chemicals.

This was at a time when Saddam was regularly using chemical weapons in defiance of international conventions but we didn't hear about his weapons of mass destruction then, or the gassing of the Kurds and the Iranians.

The Rev Kelso also has a go at the asylum seekers. As a Church minister I expected some compassion from him but I was disappointed.

Jesus himself was an asylum seeker and if Mr Kelso had been in charge then Jesus would surely have been turned away as Mr Kelso believes he would have 'milked the system.'

I am not a minister but I believe in Jesus.

I believe in a compassionate Jesus who gave away his last piece of bread to those more needy and who helped the weak and fought against powerful bullies.

Deep in my heart I know that if he walked with us today Jesus would be helping the women and children in Baghdad, comforting and praying with the people of Iraq and not with the troops of a superpower blasting them with cluster bombs, maiming and killing poor destitute people.

I urge all Christians to ask themselves, where would Jesus be if he were with us today? I believe they will come to the same conclusion as I did.

Sara Adams

Easemore Road