Letter: Bosnia: obstacles to peace, high price of 'appeasement', risks in air attack

Sir: In today's BBC 6pm news, Lady Thatcher advocated Europe attacking the aggressor in Bosnia by ground attack from the air. The USAF recently failed to hit the missile sites in the flat plain of southern Iraq. In the Gulf war, after a month's intense air blitz, not one Iraqi soldier had evacuated Kuwait, nor had the Iraqi Sam sites been taken out.

In the Falklands, the RAF failed to close the airfield - modern earth-moving equipment can refill craters rapidly. In Normandy, after a short flight in daylight, and with every type of target indicator, the USAF and the RAF bombed their own troops, causing appreciable casualties.

Yours faithfully,

NIGEL GELL

Bath