As Britain and America gear up for war on Iraq, Liberal Democrat MP Paul Marsden has asked why there is no UN taskforce to save the lives of third world children.

He made his call during a conference debate in which Lib Dems lined up to contrast the drive to war against Saddam Hussein with the lack of action at the recent Earth summit.

Debating an emergency motion on the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development Brighton delegates have expressed anger that current Western calls for tough UN action against Iraq are not echoed on green issues.

America and George W Bush came under particular fire for turning to the UN when seeking Baghdad "regime change" but failing to back measures to tackle climate change.

"Conference...recognises the failures of the summit including...the consistently negative approach towards international cooperation adopted by the US administration, exemplified by president Bush's failure to attend the summit and US withdrawal form the Kyoto protocol," states the resolution.

Labour defector and Shrewsbury MP, Paul Marsden, received conference applause when he asked why Bush could build an international alliance for war but not to save the lives of millions of children.

"If we can put together a taskforce to declare war on Iraq surely we can have a taskforce to save the 30,000 children that will die every day," he said.

"I support a taskforce to tackle one of the world's greatest evils and that would almost certainly require military forces. But the taskforce should be sent to feed southern Africa."

Telling Brighton delegates "I have travelled to Malawi and held dying children in my arms", Marsden compared the worth of three thousand lives lost in the September 11 terror attacks with the millions threatened by poverty.

"Today 30,000 children around the globe have died from starvation, lack of clean water and disease. That is ten times the number of victims who were killed in the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Yet those 30,000 young deaths occur every single day. Where is the humanity to end that slaughter?," he writes on his website.

By moving to war but failing to act to "save" the third world, Tony Blair and Bush are "contemptible and evil", argues the MP.

"Where is the outrage at those that starve to death or die from TB or AIDS? Where is the steely resolve to lift the veil of death that hangs over poor countries? There is no more contemptible and evil act by a Western leader than to deliberately stand back from that slaughter and shrug their shoulders."