Madam, - There is a little café in Rapallo, a small town in Tuscany, situated nearly opposite the church. On its walls are two black-and-white photographs. One shows the effects of the severe bombardment of the church and adjoining buildings across the road. The other shows a more peaceful scene of a jeep and a US army truck with the children and young people of the area clambering over both vehicles in high glee with a group of GIs beaming away in the background.
The year was 1944. The liberation had just taken place, the Wehrmacht were retreating in some disorder towards their own borders and the local population was celebrating their freedom.
Perhaps President Bush hoped his troops would be similarly greeted by the Iraqi people, perhaps with garlands of flowers, when they entered Baghdad after their brief "shock and awe" invasion campaign over two years ago. Unfortunately it seems that their reception did not quite work out like that as US special forces are still in the process of razing some villages to the ground together with their inhabitants in their ongoing fight against terrorism and the US determination to introduce democracy to Iraq.
I wonder where it all went wrong. - Yours, etc,
ARTHUR DUNNE, Blackrock, Co Dublin.