By acting unilaterally without the sanction of either the Security Council or the General Assembly of the UN, Tony Blair and George W Bush have, at a stroke, cast Britain and the US in the role of "international outlaws", made their ministers liable to prosecution as war criminals and exposed UK and US citizens to terrorist reprisals.

The war now unleashed against the Iraqi people, contrary to Blair and Bush's protestations, has little to do with Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and everything to do with gaining control of Iraqi oilfields.

As Hans Blix pointed out, the Iraqi government was cooperating in the destruction of its Mahmoud missiles and this was threatening the war-plans of the ruthless group of oil magnates and their stooges Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice.

A recent memorandum unearthed under the American Freedom of Information Act shows that Donald Rumsfeld was mooting a war against Afghanistan and Iraq a full year before the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

Everything since has been used as a pretext and a subterfuge.

In this memorandum, Rumsfeld speculated that in 15 years' time the US will have exhausted its own domestic reserves of oil and probably lost access to its traditional sources of supply, such as Saudi Arabia, therefore a new source was required.

Central Asia and Iraq matched the bill. This entailed control over supply lines to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean - hence the war in Afghanistan.

While the destiny of the US is in the hands of such men and the British Government makes itself party to such criminal conspiracies, no American or British citizen is safe anywhere.

-Fred Shipton, Donald Hall Road, Brighton