I AM writing to salute the one Wiltshire MP who had the courage to vote in the House of Commons for the amendment that the case for an imminent war with Iraq had not yet been proven.

Nobody likes Saddam. We all want him to disarm, but the time for war has not yet been reached.

It is noteworthy that the one man voicing our concern, Dr Andrew Murrison, the MP for Westbury, is an ex-naval surgeon, who is a reservist, and so likely to have the job of mending bodies of our young, brave servicemen and women injured in Tony Blair's war.

I say Tony Blair's war because he is leading the rush to the killing ground and speaks in a grand manner of being judged by history a phrase borrowed from Martin Luther, a man of great conscience. I have suggested in a previous letter that Blair seems to have gone mad and surely we have here a clinical case of megalomania.

I suspect he sees himself as a great war leader in the mould of the late Winston Churchill and talks of the lessons of history.

Perhaps he needs to be reminded that even Churchill could be disastrously wrong at times. He was responsible for the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign of 1915 which had features similar to the present day. The problems of fighting a war far from home bases was underestimated and so was the courage and ability of our Turkish opponents, who were battling for their homeland even though it was ruled by a corrupt regime.

This was thought to be over quickly, dragged on for many months and cost thousands of lives. There is a lesson here, Prime Minister.

Finally, may I say how disappointed I was to see Wiltshire's other five MPs, including Swindon's two, giving backing to such a man.

ROGER BARNES

Corby Avenue

Swindon