WITH regard to the Citizen Smith piece last week, the Green Party takes a very firm line on the war against Iraq.

We are totally opposed to this planned war and appalled that the world is rushing headlong into a senseless, useless, immoral and expensive method of making the situation much worse than it now is.

Here are 10 reasons why we shouldn't wage war on the Iraqi people:

1 There is no proven link between Iraq and international terrorism. The events of September 11 were largely brought about by Saudi nationals funded by Saudi wealth but no-one is proposing war on Saudi Arabia

2 Iraqis acquired chemical, biological and nuclear materials in the years up to the invasion of Kuwait with the tacit approval of the US Government.

3 The current weapons inspectors reporting to the United Nations have not found any weapons of mass destruction.

4 A war against Iraq would be a war against a large civilian population with the possible loss of life of more than 100,000 non-combatants.

5 Killing women, children, the sick and elderly is immoral and we should oppose it.

6 Iraq is in breach of UN resolutions but this is not a reason for war. If it was then we would have to go to war against Israel.

7 Possessing weapons of mass destruction is not illegal in international law. The UK and the USA have huge arsenals of these weapons, as do many others.

8 Waging war against Iraq will destabilise the region, inflame militant and anti-western tendencies and recruit thousands of new 'international terrorists'.

9 The support of the USA for Israel in its own 'war against terrorism' is seen by many Arabs as a crusade against them.

10 The enormous costs of this war are obscene. We are constantly told we can't afford a decent wage for fire fighters, a decent public transport system, decent dignified care for the elderly and decent student grants - but apparently we can spend billions killing innocent civilians.

John Whitelegg,

Lancaster & District

Green Party.