Sussex Action for Peace are right to protest against the sham handover of power in Iraq.

It is a cosmetic move by the US designed to mask their continuing occupation of the country.

After June 28, at least 160,000 foreign troops (mostly American) will remain in Iraq and US bases have sprung up across the country.

The new Iraqi army is being set up and trained by the US. Iraqi oil revenues will be controlled by the Development Fund for Iraq, a body made up of US appointees, mostly foreign. The new Iraqi government is also a line up of US stooges - the prime minister himself, Allawi, is widely seen by ordinary Iraqis as the CIA's man in Baghdad.

The vast majority of Iraqis see coalition troops as oppressors, not liberators and this is underlined by the shocking torture of Iraqi prisoners by the Americans in Abu Ghraib.

They look instead to clerics such as Al-Sadr and Sistani, who are critical of, or openly resist, the occupation.

Not surprisingly, these men have been excluded by the US from the handover of power.

And yet Tony Blair continues to peddle the same old lies about "liberation" and "democracy".

Those who launched this war will try to justify it till the end, even though it's plain to see they have caused misery and chaos.

We must continue to oppose this occupation and Bush and Blair's phoney war on terror until they are removed from power.

-Manus McGrogan, Brighton & Hove Respect, Second Avenue, Hove