Sir, - Will Bill Clinton and Tony Blair be in line for next year's Nobel Peace prize based on their human touch in getting the bombing in before Ramadan? Imagine if a bullying superpower bombed us around now and explained the timing by saying they wanted to get the killing done before Christmas. And newsreaders and commentators can say it all with a straight face as if it made great sense!
I happened to be in Hiroshima the last time Clinton announced his intentions of bombing Iraq. He was in one of his black spots over Monica Lewinsky. On that day I met a girl who told me that people who were blown into the river at 8.15 a.m. on the morning of August 6th, 1945 were heard to cry: "Give me water, give me water, please give me water." They would have been blown into the river by the bomb and by winds of up to 400 mph! They cried for water because the temperature on the ground was between 3,000 and 4,000 degrees centigrade - hot enough to fuse tiles with cement and bricks. By the end of 1945, 140,000 of the total population of Hiroshima of 350,000 were dead.
One modern-day hydrogen bomb is a thousand times more powerful than "Little Boy". Based on experience - the experience of August 8th and 11th, 1945, and December 16th, 1998 - how can we trust the likes of Clinton and Blair with their awful weapons of mass destruction? - Yours, etc., Brian F. Smyth,
Fairyhouse, Co Meath.