Letter: End Iraq's agony

Sir: Reading those near-hysterical letters (18 December) concerning the bombing of Iraq's armament-making capacity, have those writers forgotten (or perhaps not even read about) the results of this country's appeasement policy and head-in-the-sand approach to Germany's re-armament in the 1930s?

There was more logic then in our inaction, however reprehensible - we were unready, ill-armed and knowledge of what was happening to the Jews and gypsies was largely unknown. The result was that Germany gobbled up its surrounding countries and purged itself of Jews and gypsies - something that took years and many lives to put right.

Today everyone knows about the Kurds and the marsh Arabs, and Iraq's neighbours must be feeling a trifle uneasy, so perhaps those Independent readers might consider the past before condemning the present out of hand.

DERRICK WARREN

Taunton, Somerset