THE father of Tavistock paratrooper Andrew Kelly, who died in Iraq, has written to the Prime Minister blaming him for the death of his son.

In a strongly worded letter sent to Number 10 this week, Rob Kelly accused Tony Blair of declaring war on Iraq with ?no real reason?.

He said Mr Blair should resign from office unless he could justify the war on Saddam Hussein.

Mr Kelly, a Falklands veteran, wrote: ?Your decision to go to war, unnecessarily so, put my son in the firing line unnecessarily.

?Therefore, I hold you personally responsible for my son?s death, as well as the deaths of the other servicemen killed as a result of your decision to go to war with Iraq.

He wrote that Mr Blair should ?take responsibility? for his ?wrongful and ill-judged? decision and stand down as Prime Minister if he could not justify the invasion.

Mr Kelly?s son Andrew, of the 3rd Parachute Regiment, was killed in a shooting accident in Basra on May 6, just weeks after celebrating his 18th birthday.

He was the youngest British serviceman to die in the Gulf.

The former Tavistock College student had been based in Colchester with the 16 Air Assault Brigade prior to the conflict.

In his letter, Mr Kelly claimed the Prime Minister?s decision to go to war was ?taken lightly and without thought of the implications?.

?Surely, to declare war on another nation should only be a last resort when all efforts to avoid war have been exhausted,? he wrote.

?I cannot begin to explain to you how I feel about the loss of my son, nor do I believe that you care or would understand.?

The correspondence finished with a damning personal assault on Mr Blair: ?I have no confidence in you as our Prime Minister.?

Mr Kelly, who runs a fish and chip shop in Callington, served in the Royal Navy for 24 years and was based in the South Atlantic during the Falklands conflict.

Speaking to the Times this week, he said even if Saddam Hussein?s alleged weapons of mass destruction were uncovered he would still not accept Mr Blair?s reasons for going to war.

He said: ?I?m not a pacifist by any means, and I?m glad Saddam Hussein was taken down, but it shouldn?t have been done in this manner.

?The world was not behind us in this war. There are ways of combatting dictators like Saddam Hussein without rushing into a war which doesn?t have any international backing.

?Tony Blair did not exhaust all the other options before ordering military action, and several members of the cabinet were against it.?

Mr Kelly believed his letter would make the Prime Minister take notice, and hoped lessons may be learned fron his death.

?I?ve no doubt that this letter will make Tony Blair take an interest in what happened to my boy,? he said. ?And I hope that lessons will be learnt if mistakes were made.?

Mr Kelly struggled to fight back tears as he described his ?wonderful? son.

?Andrew was very well liked,? he said. ?He had a very strong, distinctive sense of humour. He was a good man.?

The circumstances of Andrew Kelly?s death are still under investigation.