Letter: Iraq's arms suppliers

THE present Gulf crisis has its origins no more in a concern to protect humanity from an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction than the previous one had its own roots in a desire to uphold international law.

The actual casus belli is the desire of the United States to keep Iraq's oil off the world market, as American oil is profitably exploitable only at a selling price of $16 per barrel or more; this amounts to a policy rather close to cannibalism.

GUILLAUME NICHOLS

Paris