I WAIT with bated breath for the apologetic letters from those of your correspondents who, during the past few weeks, have written in support of Messrs Blair, Bush et al and their "war to destroy the weapons of mass destruction" that we were told Saddam could launch "within 45 minutes".

The front page of The Independent (Thursday, May 29) says it all: "The case for war is blown apart."

Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary, in a statement that Robin Cook called "breathtaking", said that "Iraq's weapons may have been destroyed before the war". So the legal and political justification for the war is, indeed, "blown apart".

We are now in a situation where, as Tony Benn said on LBC radio ". . . the Prime Minister lied to us and lied to us and lied to us. The whole war was built upon a falsehood . . . if you can't believe what you are told by ministers, the whole democratic process is put at risk. You can't be allowed to get away with telling lies for political purposes."

And finally, former Labour minister Glenda Jackson commented: "If the creators of this war are now saying weapons of mass destruction were destroyed before the war began, then all the government ministers who stood on the floor in the House of Commons adamantly speaking of the immediate threat are standing on shaky ground."

P.KAISERMAN