Letter: Sanctions on Iraq

Sir: The fact that Saddam Hussein is using the sanctions against Iraq cynically to put pressure on the West (letter, 29 August) does not allow us to wash our hands of the deaths of children that are the result.

Even if we failed to predict that he would twist sanctions to harm his own people, we can now see what he is doing, so we should stop giving him the means. If I push a child into the cage of a man-eating tiger I cannot then claim: "It was the tiger that killed him - nothing to do with me." Still less if I push not one but half a million.

BILL LINTON

London N13