Conduct Of Ministers And Former Ministers In The Supply Of Arms To Iraq

EDM number 769 in 1992-93, proposed by Alice Mahon on 09/11/1992.

That this House notes that former Government Ministers Lord Trefgarne and Mr Alan Clark and the current Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster appear to have misled Parliament from 1987 onwards by actively encouraging the export of arms manufacturing equipment made in Britain to Iraq in violation of the arms embargo; further notes they pursued this policy as the civilised world condemned the Halabja massacre in 1988, when an estimated 5,000 Kurds were gassed; believes all the Ministers involved in these events and the current President of the Board of Trade, the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Defence, who have subsequently tried to obscure them by signing secrecy certificates, should immediately resign; and demands that the Government apologise to the British troops who were sent into combat against Saddam Hussein who was armed with weapons made with the knowledge of British Ministers.

This motion has been signed by a total of 140 MPs.