Second Gulf war 'could have been prevented', Ann Clwyd says

The second Gulf war could have been prevented if Western allies had toppled Saddam Hussein a decade earlier, according to a veteran Welsh Labour MP.

Cynon Valley MP Ann Clwyd was speaking on the 25th anniversary of the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi forces.

The occupation led to the first Gulf war in 1991 but Saddam Hussein remained in power until the second war more than 10 years later.

Ms Clwyd said United States and UK administrations had "ignored him".

Ms Clwyd, who sits on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, has long been a campaigner against human rights abuses in Iraq and was former prime minister Tony Blair's special envoy to Iraq.

'Mistakes made'

Speaking on BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement programme, Ms Clwyd said the George Bush Senior and John Major administrations had made a mistake to think the problem was solved when Saddam Hussein was forced out of Kuwait in 1991.

She said: "He was kicked out of Kuwait fairly fast but not of course before he had taken people hostage, and it was when the British hostages were taken I think the United Kingdom was alerted and pressure grew that they must do something to release those hostages.

"The whole international community, the UN, they were really sitting back and I believe ignoring him in a way that they shouldn't have done."

Ms Clwyd said the decision to "stop on the road to Baghdad" and not invade in 1991 was a mistake.

"I think the suffering and the oppression would maybe have stopped if the Iraqi army at that time had suffered a significant defeat and the allied troops had actually gone into Iraq," she said.

Asked whether she thought a second Gulf war could have been avoided if international law had been applied following the first war, she said: "I do. Absolutely I do. And I said so when I gave evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry. I know what evidence we had."