Send all the troops home

The decision not to deploy Prince Harry in Iraq seems to have created a furore among relatives of serving soldiers and has attracted adverse media comment.

It is apparent to anybody with a grain of intelligence that the presence of a high-profile royal in that particular combat area would serve only to heighten the risk to his immediate subordinates and act as a magnet to terrorist groups.

Wouldn't the allies be delighted to learn that Bin Laden was being sent to a specific region and to receive daily media reports of his movements?

It is not that the prince is any less dispensable that any other serving soldiers, rather than he would, in these particular circumstances, become a millstone around the neck of his comrades.

In a conventional conflict between uniformed combatants on a battlefield, the prince could and should be deployed, as have his forebears and siblings.

This situation is quite different.

The question should not be about whether or not Prince Harry should join his regiment in Iraq, but whether our troops should be sent home to join him.

Having relinquished our absolute aerial supremacy to conduct a campaign on enemy territory, we have become enmeshed in a web of iniquity, from which we seem unable to extricate ourselves with dignity.

We should leave Iraq to the warring factions that have existed since time immemorial and deploy our troops to defend our own borders against infiltration, which is the greatest threat facing our nation today.

Alan V Harrison, Julian Close, Great Wyrley, Walsall.