AS I recall, the last time the Americans tried to pin-point military targets in Iraq, they managed to kill a lot of British soldiers.

Anyone who imagines that they are now going to bomb that country so precisely that Saddam Hussein will be "taken out" without killing thousands of women and children is being criminally naive.

The BBC correspondent in Korea drew attention to the appalling injuries inflicted on civilians by the Americans' use of Napalm bombs for the first time.

Likewise in Vietnam. Who can forget the newsreel film of a little naked girl running down a road with her flesh hanging in strips?

The bombing campaign there involved hundreds of thousands of tons of napalm, explosives and defoliants on a largely civilian population on the grounds that "they all look alike".

This, then, is the reality of what is likely to happen if we allow ourselves to be dragged into a quite unnecessary war by Tony Blair.

We kept out of Vietnam, largely because we were not then governed by such an irresponsible bunch of opportunists.

Maurice Clarke

Mason Close

Headless Cross