Paying for War and Peace in Persian Gulf

I am outraged at Alexander Cockburn’s statement that “in moral texture there is little to separate the U.S. President from his Iraqi opposite number” (“Bombs, the Moral Tools of the West,” Column Left, Commentary, Feb. 3). I am sure he must have written that for its outre effect. There is no way any sensible person can equate Bush’s aims and actions (and indeed those of the U.N.) with those of Hussein.

In a tortuous turn of thought, Cockburn blames the British, and Winston Churchill in particular, for the possibility that Hussein may resort to the use of gas warfare. He must really be straining for material to support his ultra-liberal position to write such an egregiously partial article.

PAUL S. McCAIG

Dana Point