THE Labour MP Ann Clwyd told the Commons yesterday how hearing harrowing accounts of Saddam’s torture victims convinced her of the case for military action to overthrow him.

She described visiting Northern Iraq, from which she returned to attend yesterday’s debate, where she was told by former prisoners of mass executions, beatings and the crucifixion of a teenager.

Ms Clwyd asked MPs opposed to war: “Who is to help the victims of Saddam Hussein’s regime unless we do it? “I believe in regime change. I say that without any reservation I will support the Government tonight because I think it is doing a brave thing.”

She accused MPs of overlooking human rights abuses in Iraq and blamed a mistaken belief that these had been halted by the last Gulf War. She had pressed for Britain to indict Saddam for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, but became convinced of the need for military action on her most recent visit.

She described how she wept, the first time she had cried in public, when opening a genocide museum in Northern Iraq on finding herself surrounded by victims of Saddam’s regime.

One mother showed her photographs of her husband and her two sons who were tortured and died in the same building.

A man freed from prison in Saddam’s amnesty for political prisoners described in a victim statement almost daily executions. After an attempt to kill Uday Hussein, one of Saddam’s sons, 2,000 prisoners were killed in one day, Ms Clwyd said.

Another account was of a woman who gave birth in jail, but was unable to produce enough milk to breast-feed her baby because of the diet of thin soup and bread. “She begged guards for milk, but they refused and then the baby died. For three days she held that baby in her arms,” she said. “The temperature was very hot, and the body began to smell. They took the woman and the dead baby away. I asked a prisoner what happened to her. He said she was killed.”

A boy of 15 fainted during torture in prison. “They pinned him up to the frame of a window, crucified him,” she said. The boy cried for water, which was refused, and another prisoner who splashed water on his face was taken away and beaten, she said.

She also told MPs of visiting a United Nations camp housing Kurds, who had been given 24 hours to leave their homes. “That is the reality of Saddam’s Iraq,” she said. “When I hear people calling for more time, I say who is going to speak up for those victims?”

Ms Clwyd, MP for Cynon Valley in South Wales, has campaigned for 25 years to stop human rights abuses in Iraq. She was Labour’s spokeswoman for overseas development during the last Gulf War.

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