Your editorial leaves me in disbelief

THE EDITOR: Your editorial titled “Hutton’s distraction” has caused in me and I am sure many others, a feeling of disbelief because of the accusations made against Mr Blair and Mr Bush and their respective governments. Perhaps you should take a close look at your opening paragraph and as an exercise, change the word ‘media’ to read ‘Governments,’ follow the line of thought that I eschew and then rewrite the paragraph as follows — “It would be great of course, if Governments, whether Republican,  Democratic, Labour or Liberal, had a monopoly on infallibility, if they were operated by superhumans, who, unlike ordinary mortals, were immune to the making of errors and mistakes.”

If your statement, from which the above is derived, can be applied to the media, then why not to Mr Bush and Mr Blair? Surely the pressures that they experience and the responsibilities that they must endure, surely outweigh those of any media mogul or ordinary individual. Reading David Kay. I would like to correct your statement that he said that Saddam’s possession of WMDs was “pure fiction.” He did say that none had been found, but never said that none existed. Remember that it took four months for the allies to find 30 fighter planes that had been buried in the desert. Where are the other 270 that Saddam was reported to have possessed. They could not have been flown out as they would have all been shot down! If an entire fleet of 300 planes could be hidden, what difficulty would be experienced in hiding a few trucks or crates of chemicals. Mr Kay also stated that Iraq was in violation of dozens of sanctions imposed on Saddam’s regime after the first Gulf war and stated that these more than justified his removal from power.

About the BBC. At one time, they were considered the best of the best where factual reporting was concerned. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Their reporting now reeks of liberalism on a grand scale and they can no longer be entrusted with the reporting of the truth. I do not know whether you have seen any documentaries on Iraq as it is today, but perhaps you should make the effort to view scenes of markets and daily commerce, of smiling faces, of huge areas where absolutely no signs of war or carnage are visible. Compare these with Europe after WWII. This makes me tend to agree with the final sentence in your last paragraph, but in a different context — “Perhaps the enormity of what they have done in the name of freedom is too much for the world to accept.” But eventually, the world will!

EVERARD SCOTT
Margate
Florida, USA