Letter: US and Iraq

Letter: US and Iraq

Sir: For forty years, the USSR ("the evil empire") maintained a large armoury of weapons of mass destruction. That they were never used is due to the possession by the West of adequate deterrents. We still have such weapons, so it hardly seems necessary to maintain indefinitely teams of inspectors in Iraq in the hope of detecting every last Petri dish that might contain a biological culture (report, 21 November).

One suspects that the real US agenda is to continue sanctions on the Iraqi people and thereby to maintain a state of tension in the Gulf. This ensures American hegemony over the western Gulf oil producers and satisfies the Congress lobbies.

CHARLES HUGHES

Felixstowe, Suffolk