Is Blair’s Admission in Good Faith?

Re “Blair Concedes Mistakes,” Sept. 29: I’m glad the British prime minister is admitting his error in accepting faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, but come on! What really happened was that Tony Blair chose to ride into Iraq with the Bush gang while the real bad guys in Afghanistan went thataway. Blair goes on to say that Britain should not shirk battling, in Iraq and elsewhere, “a wholly new phenomenon, worldwide global terrorism based on a perversion of the true, peaceful and honorable faith of Islam.” I couldn’t agree more. But as a relatively sane open-minded Christian, I wonder how much true, peaceful and honorable faith is being demonstrated by this end.

Robert L. Palmer

Pacific Palisades

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Armed conflict breaks out in yet another Iraqi city (“Iraqi City on Edge of Chaos,” Sept. 28), yet President Bush and interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi tell us that everything is fine and progress is being made. Does this sound familiar? Sure -- just like Gen. William Westmoreland before Tet and Gen. George Custer before the Little Big Horn. Will we never learn?

R. S. Bolinger

Westminster