JACK Shaw (Your Letters, Feb 11) and other readers may be interested to know that at a regular meeting of Bury Council on Feb 10 Labour councillors present signed a letter to the Prime Minister. In it we expressed our concern at the possibility of the United States of America and the United Kingdom taking further military action against Iraq, without the sanction of the United Nations' Security Council.

We signified our acceptance of the benefit to the region and the world of the removal of weapons of mass destruction, and our hope that such an outcome would raise the possibility of outlawing such weapons generally.

We stated our belief in the importance of continuing to seek a non-violent route to the elimination of weapons of mass destruction until, and unless, it has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the UN Security Council that such a route does not exist and that they have no alternative but to authorise the elimination of such weapons by armed force.

We concluded by expressing our fears that action by the United States of America and the United Kingdom, without authorisation, would precipitate further strife and jeopardise our relationship with other members of the European Union, the North Atlantic Alliance, and the United Nations, and seriously exacerbate the sense of grievance among the peoples of the Middle East, quite apart from the human, economic and environmental damage which would be incurred.

DEREK BODEN