§ The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw)Today I am publishing a report on human rights abuses in Iraq. It is based on intelligence material, first hand accounts of Iraqi victims of torture and oppression, and reports amassed by NGOs over the past decade. The report examines Iraq's record on torture, the treatment of women, prison conditions, arbitrary and summary killings, the persecution of the Kurds and Shia, the harassment of opposition figures outside Iraq and the occupation of Kuwait.
The Iraqi regime's contempt for international law and its attachment to weapons of mass destruction were documented in the government's dossier published on 24 September. Its dreadful human rights record is widely known. But I consider it important that Parliament and the public should have accurate information about the awful reality of Saddam Hussein's policy of regime terror, which sustains his rule inside Iraq