11 NOVEMBER 2006, Page 28

From William Shawcross Sir: In his letter critical of my

support for the US and British commitment to Iraq, Jonathan Mirsky asserts that the ‘brutal truth’, in Iraq as in Vietnam, ‘is that the insurgents are far more willing to die than the American soldiers and their local colleagues are.’ Well, yes — the Islamists constantly crow that ‘We love death while you love life’. That makes it all the more clear that the US and Britain are on the right side in Iraq. We are trying to help the vast majority of Iraqis, who also love life, to create a decent society. It is very hard to achieve, but abandoning Iraq to the deathlovers would be a catastrophe for millions of Iraqis and for ourselves.

William Shawcross St Mawes, Cornwall