THE TELEGRAPH: The Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing has called the September 11 attacks "not that terrible" compared to the campaign of terror waged by the IRA in Britain and Northern Ireland.
Lessing, 88, who won the literature prize earlier this month, said the attacks, which led to George W. Bush's war on terror, were not as "extraordinary" as some Americans think.
She told the Spanish newspaper El Pais: "September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible. "Some Americans will think I'm crazy. Many people died, two prominent buildings fell, but it was neither as terrible nor as extraordinary as they think. They're a very naive people, or they pretend to be.
"Do you know what people forget? That the IRA attacked with bombs against our Government.
"It killed several people while a Conservative [conference] was being held and in which the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was attending. People forget," she said.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks of 2001 but more than 3,700 died and tens of thousands were injured in more than 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.
During the Troubles, the IRA murdered about 1,800 civilians and members of the security forces. Lessing, the author of The Golden Notebook, also poured scorn on Mr Bush and on Tony Blair, the fomer prime minister.
"I always hated Tony Blair, from the beginning," she said. "Many of us hated Tony Blair, I think he has been a disaster for Britain and we have suffered him for many years.
"I said it when he was elected, 'This man is a little showman who is going to cause us problems' and he did. As for Bush, he's a world calamity. Everyone is tired of this man. 9/11 not as bad as IRA, says Doris Lessing (more)
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Mark Alexander
