The Sketch: If you want pathos in the Commons, you have to turn to a six-year-old

She was such a pretty little six-year-old in the front row of the committee room; pretty in pink. She had a pink pencil case. Her pony tail was tied back with a white gauzy thing that she took off and put back with expert fingers. She was a Very Good Girl, sitting there for an hour-and-a-half without fidgeting or asking to be excused. She had a perfect profile, complete with cute nose, adorable chin and flawless complexion. Her mother was finishing her remarks at the front of the room, you could see where the looks had come from. The child was Hannah Thompson and her mother was called Samantha.

The chairman spoke with a brisk, objective sort of way: "Your husband was a hero ma'am; your dad," he looked at the pretty six-year-old, "your dad, young lady, is a hero to this country and to the world of freedom." He was an American congressman, the chairman. I don't think an Englishman would have said such a thing in that matter-of-fact way. "A hero to this country and the world of freedom." Even Tony Blair's repertoire of tribute-paying and pain-feeling doesn't have that simple, upright sense of valour.

They were a congressional team gathering evidence about the illnesses that assail Gulf War veterans. Mrs Thompson's husband had died this year of Motor Neurone Disease. "As she gets older," she said, "Hannah will start to ask questions about her father's illness. I only hope I can give her the answers. I hope I am not still waiting myself." Having heard John Spellar and Geoff Hoon on the subject in the House, I can only share Mrs Thompson's hope.

Also giving evidence was John Nichol, the Flight Lieutenant who was captured by the Iraqis. He'd been tortured. He barely mentioned it. Ten per cent, he said, of the 50,000 troops who served over there are reporting ill. The medical services offered them have been woeful.

"Two governments have now said there is no such thing as Gulf War Syndrome. But how could it be proved?" he asked.

"Are we to take a group of volunteers, expose them to a cocktail of drugs, force them to breathe the smoke from oil fires, spray them with pesticides then expose them to depleted uranium and chemical weapons?" The behaviour of the Ministry of Defence has been everything you would expect of a government institution. Mendacious, paranoid, obstructive, slovenly, indifferent.

When soldiers asked for their medical records they were denied them. Why? They were classified. "Top secret, huh?" the chairman asked with a lupine smile.

One said: "The MoD wrote to me saying no oil wells were on fire." And someone else remarked: "If they can get away with paying you a 20 per cent pension, they will." None had given informed consent to injections of anthrax. Chemical attack alarms went off frequently; they were told it was because the batteries had gone flat.

The chairman referred to a sick soldier giving evidence to officials in Washington: "He told them, in a quiet voice, 'I am not the enemy.'" He asked us to remember that. Samantha Thompson will remember that; and so, I dare say, will Hannah.

simoncarr75@hotmail.com