On political amnesia

Further to this earlier post, I try to refresh the memory of people whose memories need refreshing that those who spoke in support of the Iraq war before the Iraq war did not speak only of WMD and the terrorist threat; they also spoke of the human rights dimension and of regime change for democratization. Here, first, is Ann Clwyd, in the House of Commons on 26 February 2003, in a speech which was reported to have influenced how some MPs voted:

I do not think that I have ever cried in public before, but I did so because the regime's victims were all around me.
.....
The victims were all around me, and I have been involved for 25 years - including before I became a politician - with the Iraqi opposition. For those 25 years, I have heard the tales of Saddam Hussein's regime and its repression of the Kurds and other minorities. People seem to think that that all came to an end in 1991, but that is a big mistake. Repression, torture and ethnic cleansing have continued throughout the time since then.
.....
The man then talked about a young boy aged 15 who had done something or other and was in the prison, and fainted during one of the torture sessions - he was beaten so hard that he fainted. The guards pinned him up to the frame of a window and crucified him on the window frame while he was still alive. When he came to, he was crying out for water, but nobody would give him water. One of the other prisoners threw water in his face, but that prisoner was himself taken away and beaten.
.....
I believe in regime change. I say that without hesitation, and I will support the Government tonight because I think that they are doing a brave thing.

Here is the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on the previous day:

One further point. The purpose in our acting is disarmament. But the nature of Saddam's regime is relevant in two ways. First, WMD in the hands of a regime of this brutality is especially dangerous because Saddam has shown he will use them. Secondly, I know the innocent as well as the guilty die in a war. But do not let us forget the 4 million Iraqi exiles, the thousands of children who die needlessly every year due to Saddam's impoverishment of his country - a country which in 1978 was wealthier than Portugal or Malaysia but now is in ruins, 60 per cent of its people on food aid. Let us not forget the tens of thousands imprisoned, tortured or executed by his barbarity every year. The innocent die every day in Iraq victims of Saddam, and their plight too should be heard.

And here, finally, is President George Bush in October 2002:

Some worry that a change of leadership in Iraq could create instability and make the situation worse. The situation could hardly get worse, for world security and for the people of Iraq. The lives of Iraqi citizens would improve dramatically if Saddam Hussein were no longer in power, just as the lives of Afghanistan's citizens improved after the Taliban. The dictator of Iraq is a student of Stalin, using murder as a tool of terror and control, within his own cabinet, within his own army, and even within his own family.

On Saddam Hussein's orders, opponents have been decapitated, wives and mothers of political opponents have been systematically raped as a method of intimidation, and political prisoners have been forced to watch their own children being tortured.

America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights, to the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. People everywhere prefer freedom to slavery; prosperity to squalor; self-government to the rule of terror and torture. America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children. The oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomans, Shi'a, Sunnis and others will be lifted. The long captivity of Iraq will end, and an era of new hope will begin.

For Bush and Blair these may have been secondary arguments; for others of us they were always the main argument. Secondary or primary, they were not merely post facto.

Update: See now my follow-up post here.