WHILE answering a question on reductions in army strength on Wednesday, October 20, Tony Blair stated that there will be no reduction in army strength. I believe Mr Blair's answer was essentially an equivocal one, which a more finely tuned question would not have allowed him to get away with.

Firstly, the question posed missed the point. Whilst the Army is not being substantially reduced, the proposed reduction in good quality infantry is very worrying, especially in light of the planned deployment of the Black Watch closer to Baghdad and their replacement around Basra by the Queen's Lancashire Regiment.

It should be noted that both these British battalions are on the list for amalgamation.

Had Labour's planned defence cuts already gone ahead, we would no longer have these two excellent battalions to call upon.

Additionally, during the war and since we have had to make up numbers of infantry soldiers by using TA and foreign and Commonwealth troops, but Mr Blair and the MoD insist we have sufficient infantry soldiers and that the changed Army structure is justified and rooted in objective and valid projections.

If these ridiculous and possibly dangerous cuts are allowed to go ahead the number of available infantry soldiers will be dangerously low, probably no more than 20,000 soldiers in 36 line battalions.

Such low numbers leave very little room for rapidly changed circumstances, at home or abroad, or for serious combat casualties or recruitment and retention problems.

According to General Sir Mike Jackson, the Infantry will be re-balanced to elsewhere in the army.

But surely intelligence personnel, engineers and the like will still require well-trained infantry soldiers to back them up and protect them if deployed abroad, especially if the situation is volatile and unpredictable.

Secondly, contrary to what Mr Blair actually said the army is being reduced, but as it is already under-recruited by some 5,000 and with an actual current strength of around 103,500, a reduction of 102,000 does indeed not seem all that drastic. Unfortunately, the reductions will primarily be in front line combat troops, the very troops that we now need in Iraq.

GEORGE J Hill, Darwen. (Full address supplied).