I WAS brought up to believe in always going the last mile or more for peace.

Disarming Saddam, if it could have been done successfully, would have turned him from a big man into a small one.

There is no respect for a small man among his people in the Middle East.

Whatever happens, the West must be seen as even-handed by the Muslim World. Currently, it is not seen to be even-handed.

We have failed to put enough influence on Israel to withdraw from occupied Palestinian land and remove illegal settlements. The Palestinians' desire to regain occupied territory and to have a proper country to call their own, is understandably intense.

Until this happens, both Palestinians and Israelis will be trapped within the present cycle of hatred, terror and revenge where each regards the other as the terrorist.

For too long, Saddam has been used as an excuse to nothing for the Palestinians, and Palestine as an excuse to do nothing about Saddam.

March 16 was the fifteenth anniversary of Saddam's chemical attack on Halabja which murdered 5,000 civilians, including many children. Saddam has also been ethnically cleansing Kurdish people from Mosul and Kirkuk to make them purely Arab cities.

Iraq's Arab neighbours have never even raised one word against all of this, let alone done anything. Britain and America do now protect the Kurds with airpower.

The west cannot convince the Muslim world of its good faith until it and the UN take action over Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya instead of just talking about it - or in the case of the Chechens, simply ignoring them.

Even-handedness is vital if there is ever to be a lasting, peaceful and just settlement in the Middle East.

FRANCIS LANKESTER,

Worcester.