WAR AGAINST IRAQ: IT'S about time Tony Blair explained to both Parliament and the voters of the United Kingdom exactly where he stands. The UK is a partner in the European Community but the only people he offers any support to are George Bush and all the other right wing leaders who support whatever action America feels it wants to take.

America is now threatening to destabilise the economy of a member of the European Community, Germany, because it openly refuses to support the American attempt to take over the oil resources of Iraq. It is threatening to remove all its armed forces from Germany and move them to a country that will fall in line with any action it wants to take.

Who gives the Americans the right to threaten a community member just because it will not do what it wants? Mr Blair should tell the American President that he can't tell members of the European Community or Nato what they must do or tell the people of the United Kingdom that he agrees with everything that the Americans want to do.

When is he going to give up his lust for glory, hanging onto the shirt tail of the Americans, and get back to keeping the promises he made to the electorate at the last election? - Peter Dolan, Newton Aycliffe.

I HAVE to salute President Bush and Tony Blair for having, for once, done their homework.

The critics of their policy on Iraq appear to think that if we do nothing now the problem will go away. Sorry, not true.

The situation in the entire Middle East is too inherently unstable for there to be any ultimate resolution of it other than war. This instability is due to the existence there of large political-cultural groups, both regimes and organisations, united by hatred - of the West, of Jews, of women's rights and of modern ideas.

These groupings are intent upon war, sooner or later, but on their own terms.

Well, the opportunity still exists to fight on our terms and we should seize it.

Otherwise when the inevitable does come it could cost millions of lives, not thousands. - T Kelly, Crook.

IT appears that France, Belgium, Germany and Russia are firmly on the side of Saddam Hussein.

I can understand the antagonism of Germany towards us since they have fought against us in two world wars. The Americans have reminded our former allies of the bodies of our people we left under their soil after those wars.

I was a rookie soldier in France in 1940 and returned to their country after the invasion of 1944. We were welcomed by some of the people and in a half-hearted manner by others, but I always had the feeling that some of them resented the fact that we were once again their liberators.

Has anyone ever been told by a friend: "I will never forget what you have done for me?" And later discovered that the friend is absent-minded. - Jason Roberts, Peterlee.

NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE

I'VE just moved up here from the south coast. Here's why - inexpensive quality food, good public transport, sensible house prices, good medical facilities, beautiful countryside, friendly people. In other words a better way of life. This area does have problems - unemployment and drugs are major ones - but areas of the South have the same. It's not all milk and honey down there. Parts of the big cities are virtually war zones.

You've got the potential here both in people and infrastructure. If all the agencies concerned unite to achieve job creation, the North-East can become Britain's economic and industrial powerhouse again. It won't be easy and will take time but it can happen.

I'm sure that if more people in the South actually made the effort to come up here and look around, many would want to live here. I did. - Paul Deakin, Shildon.

RAIL SERVICES

I AM writing in response to the article by Stuart Arnold entitled 'Rail firm Recruiting - in New Zealand' (Echo, Feb 21).

As the article pointed out there is indeed a shortage of engineers in the rail industry. However, it implies that to overcome this, Network Rail is simply seeking a quick fix to the solution and is recruiting engineers from abroad.

As the new owner of the nation's infrastructure, Network Rail understands the importance of attracting more engineers into the industry to improve the network and is looking to recruit.

However, there are a limited amount of railway engineers in the UK, and Network Rail realises that taking engineers from our suppliers is not beneficial to the industry.

In an attempt to address the shortages, Network Rail has established a series of engineering conversion courses. These courses give already highly-qualified engineers from other industries specific training that allows them to start a career on the railways. Already there are 26 permanent way track engineers out working on the railway, with more currently undergoing the training, as well as a class of signalling engineers. It is now planned to run courses for electrification and telecommunication engineers.

Network Rail has also increased its graduate intake to 40 a year. In other moves to increase the railways' engineering capacity, Network Rail, along with its industry partners, is looking at establishing a new body to specifically look at rail training, and is looking to set up a specific rail engineers training centre.

However, because of the complex technical nature of the training it will take time for these measures to produce the required number of engineers. So to supplement this, Network Rail and a number of its suppliers are recruiting engineers from abroad to ensure work gets done to maintain the current high standards of safety whilst improving performance for our customers. Foundations are being laid to ensure the long-term engineering capacity of the industry is sufficient for its needs. - Steve Turner, Media Relations Manager, Network Rail.