Nurse Nayirah
Encyclopedia
Nayirah refers to the controversial testimony given before the non-governmental Congressional Human Rights Caucus
on October 10, 1990, by a female who provided only her first name, Nayirah. In her emotional testimony, Nayirah stated that after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital, take the incubators, and leave the babies to die. Though reporters did not then have access to Kuwait, her testimony was regarded as credible at the time and was widely publicized. It was cited numerous times by United States senators and the president in their rationale to back Kuwait in the Gulf War
.
Her story was initially corroborated by Amnesty International
and testimony from evacuees. Following the liberation of Kuwait
, reporters were given access to the country and found the story of stolen incubators unsubstantiated. However, they did find that a number of people, including babies, died when nurses and doctors fled the country.
In 1992, it was revealed that Nayirah's last name was al-Ṣabaḥ and that she was the daughter of Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah
, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized as part of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait
public relations campaign which was run by Hill & Knowlton
for the Kuwaiti government. Following this, al-Sabah's testimony has largely come to be regarded as wartime propaganda
.
Following the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait, there were reports from of widespread looting. On September 2, 1990 in a letter to the UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, Kuwait's UN representative, Mohammad A. Abulhasan, wrote:
In the letter, Abulhasan also noted that "theft of all equipment from private and public hospitals, including X-ray machines, scanners and pieces of laboratory equipment." The allegations of looting were also retold by evacuees who described "soldiers looting office buildings, schools and hospitals for air conditioners, computers, blackboards, desks, and even infant incubators and radiation equipment." Douglas Hurd
, the British Secretary for foreign affairs surmised that "they are looting and destroying in a way which suggests that they may not expect to be there for very long."
The looting of incubators attracted media attention because of allegations that premature babies were being discarded or dying as a result. On September 5, Abdul Wahab Al-Fowzan, the Kuwaiti health minister-in-exile, stated at a press conference in Taif, Saudi Arabia "that Iraqi soldiers had seized virtually all of the country's hospitals and medical institutions after their invasion" and that "soldiers evicted patients and systematically looted the hospitals of high-tech equipment, ambulances, drugs and plasma" which resulted in the death of 22 premature babies.The Washington Post described the origin of the Kuwaiti baby story as follows:
The Washington Post also noted that it was unable to verify the accusations as Iraq did not permit access to the area and had quarantined diplomats.
On September 5, in another letter to the UN Secretary General, Abulhasan reiterated Fowzan's claims writing:
The letter did not state how many babies had died. The allegations in the letter received widespread media coverage in the following days.
That day, in an interview with released hostages on NPR's All Things Considered, a hostage stated that Iraqi troops were "hitting children with the butts of the guns, taking infants out of incubators and taking the incubators." Reuters also reported they had been told "that Iraqi troops took premature babies out of incubators in Kuwait in order to steal the equipment."
On September 9, NPR reported that "in a ward for premature infants, soldiers had turned off the oxygen on incubators and packed the equipment for shipment to Iraq."
On September 17, Edward Gnehm Jr., the U.S. ambassador-designate to Kuwait, told reporters that Kuwaiti health officials told him 22 babies had died when Iraqi troops had stolen their incubators.
The Los Angeles Times reported that "refugees reported that incubators for premature babies were confiscated by Iraqi troops and the babies inside were piled on the floor and left to die." The San Jose Mercury News also reported the same allegation that day, adding that Western diplomats thought "this is the kind of thing that some people call genocide, and if people wanted to construe it as such, it could be cause for some kind of military intervention."
On September 25, the Washington Post reported that "Kuwait City's hospitals are being stripped of incubators."
The president of Citizens for a Free Kuwait
wrote to Representative Gus Yatron stating of how he "recently learned that the Iraqi leader has ordered that maternity hospital incubators [in Kuwait], used for treating premature babies, be turned off, allowing these infants to die of exposure."
On September 29, in a meeting between Kuwaiti leader Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah and president George Bush Sr., the exiled emir told the president that Iraqis were "going into hospitals, taking babies out of incubators and people off life-support machines to send the equipment back to Iraq." In his remarks following the discussion, Bush stated that "Iraqi aggression has ransacked and pillaged a once peaceful and secure country, its population assaulted, incarcerated, intimidated, and even murdered" and that "Iraq's leaders are trying to wipe an internationally recognized sovereign state, a member of the Arab League and the United Nations, off the face of the map."
On September 28, Kuwait's planning minister, Sulaiman Mutawa reported that 12 babies had died as a result of incubator looting.
On September 30, U.S. News & World Report reported that that it had obtained secret US government cables based on eyewitness accounts that revealed "shocking acts of brutality inflicted by the Iraqis against innocent citizens at Kuwaiti hospitals." The cables stated that on the sixth day of Iraqi invasion, Iraqi soldiers "entered the Adan Hospital in Fahaheel looking for hospital equipment to steal" and that "they unplugged the oxygen to the incubators supporting 22 premature babies and made off with the incubators" thus killing the 22 children. The 22
On October 9, at a Presidential news conference, Bush stated:
Initially, most advertisers were ignoring the Middle East crisis in their ads. It was noted that companies selling information, such as news organizations, were running advertisements for their coverage of the conflict.
was a public relations committee set up by the Kuwaiti embassy, described by The Times News as a "Washington, D.C.- based committee concerned Kuwaitis and Americans". Though the committee occupied embassy office space, they were to be working independently of the embassy.
Hill & Knowlton conducted a $1 million study to determine the best way to win support for strong action. H & K had the Wirthington Group conduct focus groups to determine the best strategy that would influence public opinion. The study found that an emphasis on atrocities, particularly the incubator story, was the most effective.
Hill & Knowlton is estimated to have been given as much as $12 million by the Kuwaitis for their public relations campaign.
and Republican Representative John Porter and rented space in Hill & Knowlton's Washington headquarters at a $3000 reduced rate.
Although Nayirah did not specify how many babies were in the incubators in her oral testimony, in the written testimony distributed by Hill and Howlton, it read "While I was there I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where 15 babies were in incubators." The testimony was not given under oath.
Representative John Porter, co-chairman of the caucus, remarked that in his eight years of service on the caucus, he had never heard such "brutality and inhumanity and sadism." Nayirah's testimony was described as the most dramatic.
That night, portions of the testimony aired on ABC's Nightline and NBC Nightly News reaching an estimated audience between 35 and 53 million Americans. Seven senators cited Nayirah's testimony in their speeches backing the use of force. President George Bush repeated the story at least ten times in the following weeks. Her account of the atrocities helped to stir American opinion in favor of participation in the Gulf War
.
On March 15, 1991, shortly after Kuwait was liberated, John Martin, an ABC reporter, reported that "patients, including premature babies, did die, when many of Kuwait's nurses and doctors stopped working or fled the country" and discovered that Iraqi troops had "almost certainly had not stolen hospital incubators and left hundreds of Kuwaiti babies to die."
On January 6, 1992, The New York Times published an op-ed piece by John MacArthur entitled "Remember Nayirah, Witness for Kuwait?" MacArthur discovered that Nayirah was the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S., Saud Nasir al-Sabah. MacArthur noted that "the incubator story seriously distorted the American debate about whether to support military action" and questioned whether "their [Representatives Lantos and Porter] special relationship with Hill and Knowlton should prompt a Congressional investigation to find out if their actions merely constituted an obvious conflict of interest or, worse, if they knew who the tearful Nayirah really was in October 1990." The story earned MacArthur the Monthly Journalism Award from The Washington Monthly in April 1992, and the Mencken Award in 1993.
On January 15, 1992, the CEO of Hill & Knowlton, Thomas E. Eidson, responded to the concerns raised by MacArthur in a letter to the editor
to The New York Times. Eidson stated that "at no time has this firm collaborated with anyone to produce knowingly deceptive testimony" asserting that the firm "had no reason to question her veracity when she testified following her escape from Kuwait." The letter explained that Nayirah's charge that Iraqi soldiers removed newborn babies from incubators was corroborated by Dr. Ibraheem Behbehani, head of the Red Crescent, before the United Nations Security Council and that the media was not permitted back inside Kuwait "until after the liberation, there was no way to check immediately on the stories of refugees." Eidson concluded that "Nayirah's credibility should no more be questioned than if she had been a doctor or teacher" and the company's work with the Kuwaitis was consistent with firm's standards stating that "the public interest was fairly served."
In August 1992, Howard Paster replaced Robert K. Gray as the general manager of the Washington office in order to cleanup the firm's image.
Critics contended that the Hill & Knowlton had concocted a fake popular movement, Citizens for a Free Kuwait, and subsequently used questionable evidence and suspect witnesses to influence public opinion and policy in the United States and the UN.
Hill & Knowlton's actions taken on behalf of Citizens for a Free Kuwait, together with those of other major clients including Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the Church of Scientology, and an anti-abortion campaign by Catholic bishops raised ethical concerns among public relations professionals. The concerns, though not new, were more vigorous than previous ones due to the prominence of the issues.
In an interview, Lantos stated that he had concealed the Nayirah's identity at the request of her father in order to protect her family and friends. Lantos denied any allegations of wrongdoing arguing that "The media happened to focus on her. If she hadn't testified, they would have focused on something else." Lantos also stated that:
In a letter to the editor to the New York Times on Jan 27, 1992 entitled "Kuwaiti Gave Consistent Account of Atrocities", Tom Lantos responded to MacArthur's allegations. He wrote that "Mr. MacArthur's deceptive article serves only the cynics who seek to rewrite the history of the Persian Gulf war" noting "the article's sinister innuendo suggests that the girl was not even in Kuwait at the time of the Iraqi invasion, and that the whole gruesome incident was a diabolical plot by an American public relations firm." Lantos wrote that "the fact that Nayirah was the daughter of the Ambassador of Kuwait made her a more credible witness" and that her "her relationship to the Ambassador and Government enhanced her credibility." He also noted that "her account was consistent with the information we received from other witnesses, with hundreds of other atrocity stories from Kuwait carried by media around the globe, and consistent with reports by independent human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, who also testified at our hearing and subsequently published accounts similar to Nayirah's." Lantos concluded that "given the countless cases of verified Iraqi human rights violations", it was "unnecessary and counterproductive to invent atrocities."
Lantos also rejected the allegations of a special relationship between the caucus and Hill & Knowlton stating that "caucus activities are held without regard to whether these countries are represented by any law firm or public relations firm."
In a subsequent letter to New York Times, MacArthur pointed out that the testimony had been retracted.
reported, "The doctors told him the maternity ward had 25 to 30 incubators. None was taken by the Iraqis, and no babies were taken from them."
Hill & Knowlton spokesman Tom Ross describes the report as a "vindication of Hill and Knowlton" and that "it conclusively demonstrates that there were incubator atrocities and that Nayirah was a witness to them."
Lantos was criticized for his withholding the information.
The testimony has been regarded as false by the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post and numerous other publications.
Following the end of the war, Reuters reported that Iraq returned "98 truckloads of medical equipment stolen from Kuwait, including two of the baby incubators". Kuwait's chief ambulance officer, Abdul Reda Abbas, stated that "We think the Iraqis might have returned the incubators by mistake."
Following the revelation of Nayirah's identity, there was a public outrage that the information had been withheld.
The content, presentation, distribution, effectiveness, and purpose of Nayirah's testimony have been the subject of multiple public relations studies.
In his book, Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse, Frans H. van Eemeren
stating that "visual messages which accompany verbal argumentation can be so drastic that rational argumentation becomes almost impossible" described Nayirah's story as an argumentum ad misericordiam. In the paper The Hill & Knowlton Cases: A Brief on the Controversy by Susanne A. Roschwalb, the author noted that as H&K was a British firm, "what effect did British concerns -such as the possible collapse of its financial institutions, if the Kuwaiti currency, the dinar, became worthless -have on Hill & Knowlton’s efforts?" Ted Rowse, in his article Kuwaitgate — killing of Kuwaiti babies by Iraqi soldiers exaggerated in the The Washington Monthly
noted that "Most reporters, having apparently been burned by Hill & Knowlton's handiwork in spreading the original Nayirah story without checking it out, seem to prefer to let the story fade away, passively falling, once again, for the company's public relations guile." John R. MacArthur, who authored Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War has noted that "at the time, it was the most sophisticated and expensive PR campaign ever run in the U.S. by a foreign government."
included several scenes dealing with the incubator allegations, without presenting the story as unquestioned truth. In that movie, several characters try to determine the accuracy or inaccuracy of the story, but are unable to draw any conclusions. After the final credits, a note stated that the incubator allegations were never substantiated.
Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission
The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission is a bipartisan caucus of the United States House of Representatives...
on October 10, 1990, by a female who provided only her first name, Nayirah. In her emotional testimony, Nayirah stated that after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
Invasion of Kuwait
The Invasion of Kuwait, also known as the Iraq-Kuwait War, was a major conflict between the Republic of Iraq and the State of Kuwait, which resulted in the seven-month long Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, which subsequently led to direct military intervention by United States-led forces in the Gulf...
she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital, take the incubators, and leave the babies to die. Though reporters did not then have access to Kuwait, her testimony was regarded as credible at the time and was widely publicized. It was cited numerous times by United States senators and the president in their rationale to back Kuwait in the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
.
Her story was initially corroborated by Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
and testimony from evacuees. Following the liberation of Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
, reporters were given access to the country and found the story of stolen incubators unsubstantiated. However, they did find that a number of people, including babies, died when nurses and doctors fled the country.
In 1992, it was revealed that Nayirah's last name was al-Ṣabaḥ and that she was the daughter of Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah
Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah
Shaikh Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah is a member of the Kuwait House of Al-Sabah ruling family and the former Kuwaiti ambassador to U.S.His daughter Nayirah and himself were reportedly involved in Citizens for a Free Kuwait which was a front group established by the Kuwaiti government to promote the...
, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized as part of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait
Citizens for a Free Kuwait
Citizens for a Free Kuwait was an astroturf operation established by the Kuwaiti government to persuade the US public to look favourably on US military action in the Persian Gulf...
public relations campaign which was run by Hill & Knowlton
Hill & Knowlton
Hill & Knowlton is a global public relations company, headquartered in New York City, United States, with 79 offices in 44 countries. Hill & Knowlton was founded in Cleveland, Ohio in 1927 by John W. Hill and is today led by Chairman & CEO, Paul Taaffe...
for the Kuwaiti government. Following this, al-Sabah's testimony has largely come to be regarded as wartime propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
.
Incubator allegations
| Iraqis are beating people, bombing and shooting. They are taking all hospital equipment, babies out of incubators . Life-support systems are turned off. . . . They are even removing traffic lights. The Iraqis are beating Kuwaitis, torturing them, knifing them, beating them, cutting their ears off if they are caught resisting or are with the Kuwaiti army or police. |
| —Evacuee's description as reported in St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
Following the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait, there were reports from of widespread looting. On September 2, 1990 in a letter to the UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, Kuwait's UN representative, Mohammad A. Abulhasan, wrote:
Further to those of our communications which are intended to inform you of the actions perpetrated by the Iraqi occupation authorities in Kuwait in contravention of all international laws, and on the basis of confirmed information provided to us by the Government of Kuwait, we wish to draw attention to a phenomenon which has no precedent in history, namely, the Iraqi occupation authorities' organized operation for the purpose of looting and plundering Kuwait. It is impossible to compare this operation to any similar incidents or to provide an exact account thereof because it is in effect an operation designed to achieve nothing less than the complete removal of Kuwait's assets, including property belonging to the State, to public and private institutions and to individuals, as well as the contents of houses, factories, stores, hospitals, academic institutes, schools, and universities...What has occurred in Kuwait is the perpetration of an act of armed robbery by a State which has used its military, security and technical organs for that purpose.
In the letter, Abulhasan also noted that "theft of all equipment from private and public hospitals, including X-ray machines, scanners and pieces of laboratory equipment." The allegations of looting were also retold by evacuees who described "soldiers looting office buildings, schools and hospitals for air conditioners, computers, blackboards, desks, and even infant incubators and radiation equipment." Douglas Hurd
Douglas Hurd
Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PC , is a British Conservative politician and novelist, who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major between 1979 and his retirement in 1995....
, the British Secretary for foreign affairs surmised that "they are looting and destroying in a way which suggests that they may not expect to be there for very long."
The looting of incubators attracted media attention because of allegations that premature babies were being discarded or dying as a result.
The Kuwaiti baby story originated with a letter from a senior Kuwaiti public health official that was smuggled out of the country by a European diplomat late last month, according to Hudah Bahar, an architect who received the letter here in London. It was supplemented by information gathered from fleeing Kuwaitis and other sources by Fawzia Sayegh, a Kuwaiti pediatrician living here.
The letter claimed that Iraqi soldiers ordered patients evicted from several hospitals and closed down critical units for treating cancer patients, dialysis patients and those suffering from diabetes. Bahar and Sayegh said the Iraqis hauled sophisticated equipment such as dialysis machines back to Baghdad, part of the haul of cash, gold, cars and jewelry that is said by Arab banking sources to exceed $2 billion. Among the equipment taken were the 22 infant incubator units, they said.
The Washington Post also noted that it was unable to verify the accusations as Iraq did not permit access to the area and had quarantined diplomats.
On September 5, in another letter to the UN Secretary General, Abulhasan reiterated Fowzan's claims writing:
We are informed by impeccable sources in Kuwait's health institutions that the Iraqi occupation authorities have carried out the following brutal crimes, which may be described as crimes against humanity:
...
2. The incubators in maternity hospitals used for children suffering from retarded growth (premature children) have been removed, causing the death of all the children who were under treatment.
The letter did not state how many babies had died. The allegations in the letter received widespread media coverage in the following days.
That day, in an interview with released hostages on NPR's All Things Considered, a hostage stated that Iraqi troops were "hitting children with the butts of the guns, taking infants out of incubators and taking the incubators." Reuters also reported they had been told "that Iraqi troops took premature babies out of incubators in Kuwait in order to steal the equipment."
On September 9, NPR reported that "in a ward for premature infants, soldiers had turned off the oxygen on incubators and packed the equipment for shipment to Iraq."
On September 17, Edward Gnehm Jr., the U.S. ambassador-designate to Kuwait, told reporters that Kuwaiti health officials told him 22 babies had died when Iraqi troops had stolen their incubators.
The Los Angeles Times reported that "refugees reported that incubators for premature babies were confiscated by Iraqi troops and the babies inside were piled on the floor and left to die." The San Jose Mercury News also reported the same allegation that day, adding that Western diplomats thought "this is the kind of thing that some people call genocide, and if people wanted to construe it as such, it could be cause for some kind of military intervention."
On September 25, the Washington Post reported that "Kuwait City's hospitals are being stripped of incubators."
The president of Citizens for a Free Kuwait
Citizens for a Free Kuwait
Citizens for a Free Kuwait was an astroturf operation established by the Kuwaiti government to persuade the US public to look favourably on US military action in the Persian Gulf...
wrote to Representative Gus Yatron stating of how he "recently learned that the Iraqi leader has ordered that maternity hospital incubators [in Kuwait], used for treating premature babies, be turned off, allowing these infants to die of exposure."
On September 29, in a meeting between Kuwaiti leader Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah and president George Bush Sr., the exiled emir told the president that Iraqis were "going into hospitals, taking babies out of incubators and people off life-support machines to send the equipment back to Iraq." In his remarks following the discussion, Bush stated that "Iraqi aggression has ransacked and pillaged a once peaceful and secure country, its population assaulted, incarcerated, intimidated, and even murdered" and that "Iraq's leaders are trying to wipe an internationally recognized sovereign state, a member of the Arab League and the United Nations, off the face of the map."
On September 28, Kuwait's planning minister, Sulaiman Mutawa reported that 12 babies had died as a result of incubator looting.
On September 30, U.S. News & World Report reported that that it had obtained secret US government cables based on eyewitness accounts that revealed "shocking acts of brutality inflicted by the Iraqis against innocent citizens at Kuwaiti hospitals." The cables stated that on the sixth day of Iraqi invasion, Iraqi soldiers "entered the Adan Hospital in Fahaheel looking for hospital equipment to steal" and that "they unplugged the oxygen to the incubators supporting 22 premature babies and made off with the incubators" thus killing the 22 children. The 22
On October 9, at a Presidential news conference, Bush stated:
I thought General Scowcroft [Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs] put it very well after the Amir left here. And I am very much concerned, not just about the physical dismantling but of the brutality that has now been written on by Amnesty International confirming some of the tales told us by the Amir of brutality. It's just unbelievable, some of the things at least he reflected. I mean, people on a dialysis machine cut off, the machine sent to Baghdad; babies in incubators heaved out of the incubators and the incubators themselves sent to Baghdad. Now, I don't know how many of these tales can be authenticated, but I do know that when the Amir was here he was speaking from the heart. And after that came Amnesty International, who were debriefing many of the people at the border. And it's sickening.
Advertising
| As far as the East is from the West, that's how far most U.S. advertisers want to be removed from any hint of capitalizing on the Iraqi conflict. |
| —Advertisers steer clear of Mideast,St. Petersburg Times |
Initially, most advertisers were ignoring the Middle East crisis in their ads. It was noted that companies selling information, such as news organizations, were running advertisements for their coverage of the conflict.
Citizens for a Free Kuwait
The Citizens for a Free KuwaitCitizens for a Free Kuwait
Citizens for a Free Kuwait was an astroturf operation established by the Kuwaiti government to persuade the US public to look favourably on US military action in the Persian Gulf...
was a public relations committee set up by the Kuwaiti embassy, described by The Times News as a "Washington, D.C.- based committee concerned Kuwaitis and Americans". Though the committee occupied embassy office space, they were to be working independently of the embassy.
Hill & Knowlton
In 1990, after being approached by a Kuwaiti expatriate in New York, Hill & Knowlton took on "Citizens for a Free Kuwait." The objective of the national campaign was to raise awareness in the United States about the dangers posed by Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein to Kuwait.Hill & Knowlton conducted a $1 million study to determine the best way to win support for strong action. H & K had the Wirthington Group conduct focus groups to determine the best strategy that would influence public opinion. The study found that an emphasis on atrocities, particularly the incubator story, was the most effective.
Hill & Knowlton is estimated to have been given as much as $12 million by the Kuwaitis for their public relations campaign.
Congressional Human Rights Foundation
The Congressional Human Rights Foundation is a non-governmental organization that investigates human rights abuse. It was headed by Democratic U.S. Representative Tom LantosTom Lantos
Thomas Peter "Tom" Lantos was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 until his death, representing the northern two-thirds of San Mateo County and a portion of southwest San Francisco...
and Republican Representative John Porter and rented space in Hill & Knowlton's Washington headquarters at a $3000 reduced rate.
Testimony
On October 10, 1990 Nayirah was the last to testify at the Caucus. In her oral testimony, which lasted about 6 minutes, she stated:
I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital with twelve other women who wanted to help as well. I was the youngest volunteer. The other women were from twenty to thirty years old. While I was there I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the babies on the cold floor to die.[crying] It was horrifying.
Although Nayirah did not specify how many babies were in the incubators in her oral testimony, in the written testimony distributed by Hill and Howlton, it read "While I was there I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where 15 babies were in incubators." The testimony was not given under oath.
Representative John Porter, co-chairman of the caucus, remarked that in his eight years of service on the caucus, he had never heard such "brutality and inhumanity and sadism." Nayirah's testimony was described as the most dramatic.
Hill & Knowlton
It is unclear how much of Nayirah's testimony was coached. Though the firm was supposed to provide only stylistic help, it was reported that H&K "provided witnesses, wrote testimony, and coached the witnesses for effectiveness."Effect
Nayirah's testimony was widely publicized. Hill & Knowlton, which had filmed the hearing, sent out a video news release to Medialink, a firm which served about 700 television stations in the United States.That night, portions of the testimony aired on ABC's Nightline and NBC Nightly News reaching an estimated audience between 35 and 53 million Americans. Seven senators cited Nayirah's testimony in their speeches backing the use of force. President George Bush repeated the story at least ten times in the following weeks. Her account of the atrocities helped to stir American opinion in favor of participation in the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
.
Corroboration
On January 13, 1991, the Sunday Times reported that a Dr Ali Al-Huwail could vouch for 92 deaths.Iraq
Iraq denied the allegations. On October 16, Iraqi information minister, Latif Nassif al-Jassem, told the Iraqi News Agency that "now you [Bush] are using what he [Sheikh Jaber] told you to make Congress ratify the budget which is in the red because of your policies" adding that "you, as the president of a superpower, have to weigh words carefully and not act as a clown who repeats what he is told."Kuwait visits
In a visit to Kuwait on October 21, 1990, journalists who were escorted by Iraqi information ministry officials, doctors at a Kuwaiti maternity facility denied the incubator allegations. In the visit, the Iraqi head of the Kuwaiti health department, Abdul-Rahman Mohammad al-Ugeily, said that "Baghdad had sent 1,000 doctors and other medical to staff to help run Kuwait's 14 hospitals and health centres following the invasion."Revelation
| A little reportorial investigation would have done a great service to the democratic process. |
| —John MacArthur |
On March 15, 1991, shortly after Kuwait was liberated, John Martin, an ABC reporter, reported that "patients, including premature babies, did die, when many of Kuwait's nurses and doctors stopped working or fled the country" and discovered that Iraqi troops had "almost certainly had not stolen hospital incubators and left hundreds of Kuwaiti babies to die."
On January 6, 1992, The New York Times published an op-ed piece by John MacArthur entitled "Remember Nayirah, Witness for Kuwait?" MacArthur discovered that Nayirah was the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S., Saud Nasir al-Sabah. MacArthur noted that "the incubator story seriously distorted the American debate about whether to support military action" and questioned whether "their [Representatives Lantos and Porter] special relationship with Hill and Knowlton should prompt a Congressional investigation to find out if their actions merely constituted an obvious conflict of interest or, worse, if they knew who the tearful Nayirah really was in October 1990." The story earned MacArthur the Monthly Journalism Award from The Washington Monthly in April 1992, and the Mencken Award in 1993.
Hill and Knowlton
| We disseminated information in a void as a basis for Americans to form opinions. |
| —Frank Mankiewicz, Vice Chairman, Hill & Knowlton |
On January 15, 1992, the CEO of Hill & Knowlton, Thomas E. Eidson, responded to the concerns raised by MacArthur in a letter to the editor
Letter to the editor
A letter to the editor is a letter sent to a publication about issues of concern from its readers. Usually, letters are intended for publication...
to The New York Times. Eidson stated that "at no time has this firm collaborated with anyone to produce knowingly deceptive testimony" asserting that the firm "had no reason to question her veracity when she testified following her escape from Kuwait." The letter explained that Nayirah's charge that Iraqi soldiers removed newborn babies from incubators was corroborated by Dr. Ibraheem Behbehani, head of the Red Crescent, before the United Nations Security Council and that the media was not permitted back inside Kuwait "until after the liberation, there was no way to check immediately on the stories of refugees." Eidson concluded that "Nayirah's credibility should no more be questioned than if she had been a doctor or teacher" and the company's work with the Kuwaitis was consistent with firm's standards stating that "the public interest was fairly served."
In August 1992, Howard Paster replaced Robert K. Gray as the general manager of the Washington office in order to cleanup the firm's image.
Critics contended that the Hill & Knowlton had concocted a fake popular movement, Citizens for a Free Kuwait, and subsequently used questionable evidence and suspect witnesses to influence public opinion and policy in the United States and the UN.
Hill & Knowlton's actions taken on behalf of Citizens for a Free Kuwait, together with those of other major clients including Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the Church of Scientology, and an anti-abortion campaign by Catholic bishops raised ethical concerns among public relations professionals. The concerns, though not new, were more vigorous than previous ones due to the prominence of the issues.
Tom Lantos response
| Hold on to your hats. The grand campaign to rewrite the history of the Persian Gulf war is on. |
| -Tom Lantos response to MacArthur |
In an interview, Lantos stated that he had concealed the Nayirah's identity at the request of her father in order to protect her family and friends. Lantos denied any allegations of wrongdoing arguing that "The media happened to focus on her. If she hadn't testified, they would have focused on something else." Lantos also stated that:
The notion that any of the witnesses brought to the caucus through the Kuwaiti Embassy would not be credible did not cross my mind. I have no basis for assuming that her story is not true, but the point goes beyond that. If one hypothesizes that the woman's story is fictitious from A to Z, that in no way diminishes the avalanche of human rights violations.
In a letter to the editor to the New York Times on Jan 27, 1992 entitled "Kuwaiti Gave Consistent Account of Atrocities", Tom Lantos responded to MacArthur's allegations. He wrote that "Mr. MacArthur's deceptive article serves only the cynics who seek to rewrite the history of the Persian Gulf war" noting "the article's sinister innuendo suggests that the girl was not even in Kuwait at the time of the Iraqi invasion, and that the whole gruesome incident was a diabolical plot by an American public relations firm." Lantos wrote that "the fact that Nayirah was the daughter of the Ambassador of Kuwait made her a more credible witness" and that her "her relationship to the Ambassador and Government enhanced her credibility." He also noted that "her account was consistent with the information we received from other witnesses, with hundreds of other atrocity stories from Kuwait carried by media around the globe, and consistent with reports by independent human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, who also testified at our hearing and subsequently published accounts similar to Nayirah's." Lantos concluded that "given the countless cases of verified Iraqi human rights violations", it was "unnecessary and counterproductive to invent atrocities."
Lantos also rejected the allegations of a special relationship between the caucus and Hill & Knowlton stating that "caucus activities are held without regard to whether these countries are represented by any law firm or public relations firm."
In a subsequent letter to New York Times, MacArthur pointed out that the testimony had been retracted.
Ambassador Sabah
The ambassador has stated that his daughter had witnessed the atrocities she described, and that her presence in Kuwait could be verified by the United States Embassy in Kuwait. He also stated "If I wanted to lie, or if we wanted to lie, if we wanted to exaggerate, I wouldn't use my daughter to do so. I could easily buy other people to do it."Middle East Watch
In 1992, the human rights organization Middle East Watch published the results of their investigation of the incubator story. Its director, Andrew Whitley, told the press, "While it is true that the Iraqis targeted hospitals, there is no truth to the charge which was central to the war propaganda effort that they stole incubators and callously removed babies allowing them to die on the floor. The stories were manufactured from germs of truth by people outside the country who should have known better." One investigator, Aziz Abu-Hamad, interviewed doctors in the hospital where Nayirah claimed she witnessed Iraqi soldiers pull 15 infants from incubators and leave them to die. The IndependentThe Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
reported, "The doctors told him the maternity ward had 25 to 30 incubators. None was taken by the Iraqis, and no babies were taken from them."
Amnesty International
Amnesty International initially supported the story, but later issued a retraction. It stated that it "found no reliable evidence that Iraqi forces had caused the deaths of babies by removing them or ordering their removal from incubators."Kroll Report
Kuwaiti officials do not discuss the matter with the press. In order to respond to these charges, the Kuwaiti government hired Kroll Associates to undertake an independent investigation of the incubator story. The Kroll investigation lasted nine weeks and conducted over 250 interviews. The interviews with Nayirah revealed that her original testimony was wildly distorted at best; she told Kroll that she had actually only seen one baby outside its incubator for "no more than a moment." She also told Kroll that she was never a volunteer at the hospital and had in fact "only stopped by for a few minutes."Hill & Knowlton spokesman Tom Ross describes the report as a "vindication of Hill and Knowlton" and that "it conclusively demonstrates that there were incubator atrocities and that Nayirah was a witness to them."
Criticism
The campaign has been described by critics as corrupt, deceptive and unethical and charge that it was used to spread false or exaggerated tales of Iraqi atrocities.Lantos was criticized for his withholding the information.
The testimony has been regarded as false by the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post and numerous other publications.
Aftermath
| In fact, nearly everyone involved in peddling the tale of the unplugged babies, from Amnesty International to Kuwaiti doctors, has sprinted away from it. |
| —Newsday |
Following the end of the war, Reuters reported that Iraq returned "98 truckloads of medical equipment stolen from Kuwait, including two of the baby incubators". Kuwait's chief ambulance officer, Abdul Reda Abbas, stated that "We think the Iraqis might have returned the incubators by mistake."
Following the revelation of Nayirah's identity, there was a public outrage that the information had been withheld.
Scholarly commentary
| In the end, the question was not whether H&K effectively altered public opinion, but whether the combined efforts of America's own government, foreign interests, and private PR and lobbying campaigns drowned out decent and rational, unemotional debate. |
| —The power house: Robert Keith Gray and the selling of access and influence in Washington |
The content, presentation, distribution, effectiveness, and purpose of Nayirah's testimony have been the subject of multiple public relations studies.
In his book, Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse, Frans H. van Eemeren
Pragma-dialectics
Pragma-dialectics, or pragma-dialectical theory, developed by and Rob Grootendorst at the University of Amsterdam, is an argumentation theory that is used to analyze and evaluate argumentation in actual practice...
stating that "visual messages which accompany verbal argumentation can be so drastic that rational argumentation becomes almost impossible" described Nayirah's story as an argumentum ad misericordiam. In the paper The Hill & Knowlton Cases: A Brief on the Controversy by Susanne A. Roschwalb, the author noted that as H&K was a British firm, "what effect did British concerns -such as the possible collapse of its financial institutions, if the Kuwaiti currency, the dinar, became worthless -have on Hill & Knowlton’s efforts?" Ted Rowse, in his article Kuwaitgate — killing of Kuwaiti babies by Iraqi soldiers exaggerated in the The Washington Monthly
The Washington Monthly
The Washington Monthly is a bimonthly nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C.The magazine's founder is Charles Peters, who started the magazine in 1969 and continues to write the "Tilting at Windmills" column in each issue. Paul Glastris, former...
noted that "Most reporters, having apparently been burned by Hill & Knowlton's handiwork in spreading the original Nayirah story without checking it out, seem to prefer to let the story fade away, passively falling, once again, for the company's public relations guile." John R. MacArthur, who authored Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War has noted that "at the time, it was the most sophisticated and expensive PR campaign ever run in the U.S. by a foreign government."
In popular culture
The 2002 HBO movie Live From BaghdadLive from Baghdad (film)
Live from Baghdad is a television movie produced in 2002 by HBO. It was directed by Mick Jackson and written by Robert Wiener . The movie was released during the prelude stage of the Iraq War....
included several scenes dealing with the incubator allegations, without presenting the story as unquestioned truth. In that movie, several characters try to determine the accuracy or inaccuracy of the story, but are unable to draw any conclusions. After the final credits, a note stated that the incubator allegations were never substantiated.
See also
- To Sell a WarTo sell a warTo Sell A War is a documentary, first aired in December 1992 as part of CBC programme the fifth estate. The programme was directed by Martyn Gregory and produced by Neil Docherty....
- Live From BaghdadLive from Baghdad (film)Live from Baghdad is a television movie produced in 2002 by HBO. It was directed by Mick Jackson and written by Robert Wiener . The movie was released during the prelude stage of the Iraq War....
- Jumana HannaJumana HannaJumana Michael/Mikhail Hanna is an Iraqi woman of Assyrian Christian background who was imprisoned at loose dog's during the rule of Saddam Hussein. In July 2003, she attested to the Coalition Provisional Authority that she had been tortured during her time in the prison, due to her religious...
- Saud bin Nasir Al-SabahSaud bin Nasir Al-SabahShaikh Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah is a member of the Kuwait House of Al-Sabah ruling family and the former Kuwaiti ambassador to U.S.His daughter Nayirah and himself were reportedly involved in Citizens for a Free Kuwait which was a front group established by the Kuwaiti government to promote the...
- Saddam Hussein's alleged shredderSaddam Hussein's alleged shredderIn the runup to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, press stories appeared in the United Kingdom and United States of a plastic shredder into which Saddam and Qusay Hussein fed opponents of their Baathist rule. These stories attracted worldwide attention and boosted support for military action, in stories...
External links
- Brian EnoBrian EnoBrian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, Lessons in how to lie about Iraq, The ObserverThe ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, August 17, 2003. - Ameen Izzadeen, Lies, damn lies and war, Daily Mirror of Sri Lanka, 2001 (no more precise date provided), archive.org mirror accessed 18 December 2006.
- Phillip KnightleyPhillip KnightleyPhillip Knightley is a journalist, critic, and non-fiction author, visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Lincoln, England, and media commentator on the intelligence services and propaganda.-Biography:...
, The disinformation campaign, The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, October 4, 2001. - Maggie O'KaneMaggie O'KaneMaggie O'Kane is an award-winning Irish journalist and documentary film maker. She has been most associated with The Guardian newspaper where she was a foreign correspondent who filed graphic stories from Sarajevo while it was under siege between 1992 and 1996. She also contributed to the BBC from...
, This time I'm scared, The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, December 5, 2002. - Alexander CockburnAlexander CockburnAlexander Claud Cockburn is an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...
, Truth or Propaganda? Radio Interview with Geoff Pevere on Canadian Broadcasting CorporationCanadian Broadcasting CorporationThe Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
Prime Time, originally broadcast December 14, 1992.