CONGRATULATIONS on having the courage in your comment piece (Journal, October 21, Forces Focus) to draw attention to the true state of affairs in Basra and Al Amara, the British area of responsibility in Iraq.

The commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade is quoted as saying: "I've stood before a company of soldiers who had the same haunted gaze as soldiers from the second world war and Korean War because they have been subjected to the most extraordinary events, which to a large degree have gone unreported."

The previous evening, those watching Meridian TV news had seen a video, smuggled home by a serving corporal, of a typically fierce firefight in that supposedly quiet region.

Later, I was reading from a monitoring service that records the Telegraph, which reported: "The British have tight control over the press in southern Iraq . . . Army chaperones accompany journalists at all times, trying to ensure that they hear nothing more untoward than the odd squaddie expletive."

This ties up with your report that Basra and Al Amara have been almost off-limits to British journalists.

No doubt serving and retired soldiers, along with their families, from this military area will now be expecting our Salisbury MP to press some searching questions in parliament as to who instigated this sinister and repellent gagging policy and whose careers are to be brought to a dishonourable end for being implicated in yet another sordid attempt to deceive the British people.

ANTHONY J LANE

Richards Way

West Harnham

CONCLUSIVELY and officially, with the publication of the Iraq survey group's report recently, we learned that Iraq as a country had fully disarmed, in accordance with all conditions imposed and on top of 12 long years of constrictive sanctions and years of bombardment from the air by coalition planes and missiles.

Moreover, our government knowingly invaded and attacked a disarmed country. The humanitarian disaster is beyond words, and I appeal to all decent people to support the good deeds of two charitable organisations: Child Victims of War, which has positive indications from Unicef for backing in opening a human rights office in Baghdad that will focus in particular on the plight of children, and the Lady Fatemah Charitable Trust, which has already initiated drinking water, lighting and sewerage projects. An eye clinic is planned for Basra.

Further details are available on the websites.

LAVINIA JOWETT

New Manor Farm

Winterslow