The Nayirah testimony was false testimony given before the United States Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990, by a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl who was publicly identified only as Nayirah at the time, and presented herself as having been a volunteer nurse at a Kuwaiti hospital at the time of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In her testimony, which took place two months after the invasion, she claimed to have witnessed Iraqi soldiers taking premature babies out of incubators in a maternity ward before looting the incubators and leaving the babies to die on the floor. Nayirah's statements were widely publicized and cited numerous times in the United States Senate and by American president George H. W. Bush to contribute to the rationale for pursuing military action against Iraq. Her portrayal of Iraqi war crimes was aimed at further increasing global support for Kuwait against the Iraqi occupation during the Gulf War, which resulted in the expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait by a 42-country coalition led by the United States.
In January 1992, it was revealed that Nayirah had never been a nurse and that she was the daughter of Saud Nasser Al-Saud Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States at the time the testimony was made. She and her father were members of the House of Sabah, the ruling family of Kuwait. Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized as part of a wider public relations campaign conducted by the Kuwaiti government-in-exile's Citizens for a Free Kuwait, which sought to encourage American military involvement against Iraq's occupation of Kuwait through coordination with the American public relations firm Hill & Knowlton. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, the Nayirah testimony came to be regarded as a classic example of modern atrocity propaganda.
Nayirah's story was initially corroborated by Amnesty International, which published a report about the supposed killings and testimony from Kuwaiti evacuees. Following the liberation of Kuwait, international media crews were given access to the country. A report by ABC News found that "patients, including premature babies, did die, when many of Kuwait's nurses and doctors ... fled" but Iraqi troops "almost certainly had not stolen hospital incubators and left hundreds of Kuwaiti babies to die."Fowler, p. 22 Later, Amnesty International USA reacted by issuing a correction, with executive director John Healey subsequently accusing the George H. W. Bush administration of "opportunistic manipulation of the international human rights movement."
Background
Looting by Iraqi forces Following the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait, there were reports of widespread looting. On September 2, 1990, in a letter to the UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, 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 the "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."
Incubator allegations The looting of neonatal incubators attracted media attention because of allegations that premature babies were being discarded and dying as a result.Rendall, p. 24 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.
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.Walton, p 771 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."
The Washington Post described the origin of the Kuwaiti baby story in a September 10 article headlined "Iraq, Kuwait Waging an Old-Fashioned War of Propaganda", noting that it was unable to verify the accusations as Iraq did not permit access to the area and had quarantined diplomats: 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.
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 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 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.
George H. W. Bush remarks
On September 29, in a meeting between the Emir of Kuwait Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah and President George H. W. Bush, 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:
"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 October 9, during 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."
Citizens for a Free Kuwait The Citizens for a Free Kuwait 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.Andersen, p. 170 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