Ivor Caplin's defence of the occupation of Iraq (Letters, July 26) is misleading.

He speaks of a possible comeback by Saddam Hussein if coalition troops withdraw but this argument is being used to mask a brutal occupation of a country and has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction or political liberation.

Rather, it serves the interests of US power and the oil companies.

There is a continuing campaign of resistance in Iraq. Mr Caplin's assertion that this opposition is led by Ba'athists is misleading.

With up to ten thousand civilian deaths and the devastation of the country's infrastructure, why should the Iraqi people not be aggrieved?

Readers will recall Mr Caplin's continual references to United Nations statistics listing Saddam's WMD programme. His reliance upon these is a sign of his cynical approach to this issue.

Before the invasion, Blair and Bush blatantly brushed aside the UN and after the "victory" dismissed the UN in favour of US weapons inspectors.

In reality there are no WMD and Mr Caplin discredits himself by continuing to fantasise about them. The anti-war movement has consistently doubted the existence of these weapons and the argument that war was justified on this basis.

When Hove Action for Peace lobbied Mr Caplin at Hove Town Hall on July 19, our pro-war MP stated that the oil resources of Iraq provided an "opportunity" for the occupying powers to "reconstruct" the country's economy.

The reality of this "opportunity" is that Iraq's oil has been taken over by the United States and that the profits are being used to pay US and British construction companies.

This is obscene.

We are not impressed by Mr Caplin's boast that £154m of British money is going into the "reconstruction" of Iraq, when the war cost £3.5bn and continues to take £5m every day away from schools, hospitals and homes for all.

We do not believe Mr Caplin represents the views of the people of Hove and Portslade.

When we call for the end of the occupation, we feel we are more in tune with the views of local people - who have signed our petitions in thousands - than Mr Caplin.

For these reasons we believe that Mr Caplin locally and New Labour nationally should stand down. We have been lied to enough.

-Manus McGrogan and Dan Rycroft, Hove Action for Peace, Salisbury Road, Hove