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Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab): I am greatly tempted to answer the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) on his point about containment. Containment did not work. Containment never worked and, Robin, if you had read the Select Committee on International Development's report on sanctions you would have known the answer. The Committee concluded that sanctions were not working, that Saddam Hussein was getting exactly what he wanted, that the sanctions were too loose and should be tightened, and that the person mainly responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people was Saddam Hussein himself. But that is a debate for another time.

Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con): If the hon. Lady believes what she said, does she believe that the Prime Minister was right to say on 26 February—as quoted by the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and
 
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Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy)—that the removal of weapons of mass destruction would permit Saddam Hussein to remain in place?

Ann Clwyd: My view has been expressed often enough in the House: I believed in regime change and I wanted the regime toppled a long time ago. Whatever argument could be used to topple that regime, I would support it. That is still my view. I am certain that the people of Iraq are very pleased that Saddam Hussein has been removed. I do not know anyone who would care to refute that statement. I go often enough to Iraq and talk to enough people to be convinced that that is their view.

Mr. Salmond: The hon. Lady has been consistent in her view throughout. However, I have a certain memory of President Clinton, in a speech to the Labour conference in 2002, making exactly the same point about the success of containment, and every member of the Cabinet sitting behind him nodded vigorously.

Ann Clwyd: I am afraid that the President was wrong as well. Containment did not work, but that is a debate for another time.

Mr. Savidge: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Ann Clwyd: May I move on? I have given only a few lines of my speech. I shall give way later.

A few days ago, I received an e-mail from Baghdad confirming that the evidence collected by Indict over the past seven years would be used in the war crimes trial against Saddam Hussein and his regime, and that genocide is one of the many charges that he will face. For those of us who have campaigned on the issue for more than 20 years, Saddam Hussein's performance in the witness box the other week was predictable. He jabbed his finger at the judge, insisted that he was still President of Iraq and justified the invasion of Kuwait.

As the charges were read out, we were reminded that his was a regime that had complete disregard for human life. In 1987, the Committee against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq, which I chaired, published a pamphlet on torture in Iraq. It included the testimony of an Iraqi doctor, who said that he had been forced to take part in one of the more sinister practices that took place in Abu Ghraib—the forced draining of the blood of political prisoners before their execution, so that the reason for their death could be recorded as heart failure. Only a regime such as Saddam Hussein's could possibly think of turning a life-saving humanitarian practice into a cruel method of murder.

It has become commonplace to argue that the new Interim Government lack legitimacy. The words "quisling" and "puppet" are widely used, while anti-coalition violence is said to represent the real war of liberation. That ignores all the recent polls, which show widespread support for the Interim Government. In the last poll, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi had an approval rating of 73 per cent., while the President received 84 per cent.

I have known and worked with the opposition to Saddam for more than two decades, so I find the description of brave individuals as puppets deeply offensive. In 1978, Dr. Allawi was nearly killed in an axe
 
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attack in London. The Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Barham Salih, whose family are in the House today, was imprisoned at the age of 16 for his political activities. The Deputy Foreign Minister, Dr. Hamid al-Bayati, was imprisoned in Abu Ghraib and five members of his family were killed by Saddam's regime. Some 8,000 members of Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari's family disappeared in 1983, and have never been seen since.

Every day, those individuals and others face the knowledge that they are targets for assassination, but they continue to work, just as the policemen return to their jobs every day, despite the suicide bombs targeted at them. One of them told a newspaper:

"Our job is to protect the Iraqi people. There are bombings, but we are not scared of these terrorists. These people are cowards, who are damaging our country."

Those who champion resistance as the real voice of Iraq offer not an alternative political programme, but merely opposition to the existing strategy. They are silent about what they want for Iraq, apart from getting the Americans out. They are opposed by the emerging civil society in Iraq.

On 21 June, Abdullah Mushin of the Iraqi Federation of Workers Trade Unions addressed Unison's national conference. The IFTU had opposed the war. Last December, its Baghdad offices were raided by coalition forces. Despite that, he was clear that solidarity was required to defeat those who would deny Iraqis democracy. He said:

"It is only a few days"—

he was talking just before the end of June—

"and the IFTU and the Iraqis need your support and solidarity to make this happen, and stop attempts by terrorists and Saddam's supporters to derail the transfer of power to Iraqis. That is a crucial step forward to end the occupation, regain full sovereignty and enable the Iraqi people to determine their own political future through democratic elections."

The alternative to the violence of the resistance is already in place. At the end of this week, there will be a national conference in Baghdad. That will be the starting point for a process that will conclude with the agreement of a permanent constitution and national elections. Do we really believe that that would be an option if the so-called resistance won?

Mr. Savidge: Surely, containment worked insofar as it stopped aggression against other countries and much more than most of us would have probably dared to believe in relation to weapons of destruction, but the international community should have given much higher priority to enforcing conditions in relation to human rights. I pay all credit to my hon. Friend for the campaign on that issue that she has run for such a long time.

Ann Clwyd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments. Clearly, there are lots of points of discussion, but the charge of genocide is very serious. Even in current humanitarian law, genocide calls for action by other countries. That is why the Secretary-General of the UN has started a big debate on the subject of genocide and how we should act when genocide takes
 
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place. No one who remembers the events in Rwanda can argue that we should not have taken action. Genocide was an ongoing fact of life in Iraq as well.

Either we support those who offer the chance of a democratic Iraq, with laws that protect the rights of all Iraqis and a civil society that ensures that the country never returns to the days of dictatorship, or we embrace the gunmen and the bombers, who have already demonstrated their contempt for human life.

Although we can still argue about the reasons for the conflict, the more pressing argument is what we do now. Opinion polls have consistently recorded that the vast majority of the Iraqis want democracy. They also want foreign troops to leave. However, when asked what Iraq needs at this time, more than 70 per cent. of those who took part in the Oxford Research International poll said, "We want an Iraqi democracy."

The debate in Britain will be a reflection on us and on our values. Are we capable of the maturity displayed by the Iraqis, who are working in the most difficult circumstances to build a new democracy, or will we be represented by those who despise George Bush and the Prime Minister so much that they are prepared to offer support and succour to the resistance, which offers no alternative or agenda other than bloodshed and chaos?

4.44 pm

Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con): I was one of those on 18 March last year who voted for the war, and I feel deeply—I will not use the word "deceived"—let down by the Government. I feel let down not simply because the intelligence assessment has proved probably more wide of the mark than any other major intelligence assessment in recent times, or possibly since well back into the last century, but because the Government's justification for going to war since the war ended is totally different from the justification that was given to the House on 18 March last year.

Since the war, the justification that has been given again and again—it was given by the Prime Minister today—is the benefit of regime change, which I do not for a moment deny, but did he say on 18 March last year that that was one of the reasons that we were going to war? He said:

"I have never put the justification for action as regime change. We have to act within the terms set out in resolution 1441—that is our legal base."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 772.]

I would have no complaint if he had come to the Dispatch Box on 18 March last year and said, "This is the intelligence that we have, with all the caveats and all the uncertainties, that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, but we also are going to war to change the regime because, in human rights terms, it is abominable. Although it is illegal to go to war to change the regime, we ask the House to support our going to war on that basis".

My right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) have raised the key unanswered question: was there a deal between President Bush and our Prime Minister that, come hell or high water, if the Americans decided to go to war to change the regime,
 
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Britain and her armed forces would be there? I am no more clear as to what the answer is today than I have been for months past.

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