User:Cyan/kidnapped/Nurse Nayirah

"Nurse Nayirah" was a creation of Hill & Knowlton for promoting the 1991 Gulf War.

15-year-old "Nayirah" (Nijirah al-Sabah) testified before Congress in October 1990 that she was a refugee volunteering in the maternity ward of Al Adnan hospital in Kuwait City, and that during the occupation by Iraq she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers dumping Kuwaiti infants out of their incubators "on[to] the cold floor to die," and then leaving with the machines.

This testimony came at a crucial time for the Bush administration, which was pressing for military action to eject Iraq from Kuwait. But the US government had thoroughly hashed out its relation with Kuwait, and even before Iraq invaded it was pretty clear they had no obligation and little will to defend the little sheikdom.

Naturally, Nayirah's story whipped up fresh anti-Iraq sentiment. The media lapped it up, and at least six Congressmen would say Nayirah's testimony was enough for them to support military action against Iraq. Bush referred to the story six times in the next five weeks. Seven Senators referenced the testimony in debate, and their vote re military action approved it by a margin of five.

But Frieda Construe-Nag and Myra Ancog Cooke, two real maternity nurses who were actually in that ward, would say they had never seen Nayirah there and that the baby-dumping had never happened.

It eventually came out that "Nurse Nayirah" was actually the daughter of Kuwait's ambassdor to the US. Citizens for a Free Kuwait, organised by the exiled Kuwaiti government, had hired Hill & Knowlton to prop up support for the US counterstrike. It was taking longer to prepare for Desert Storm than had been planned, and the flush of anti-Iraqism from the invasion was flagging.

(Accusing the enemy of being a baby-butcher is a standard trick of the war-propaganda trade, one at least as old as the Crusades. It was used against the Germans in World War I.)

Amnesty International—which could've been expected to be a little more careful given its broad experience and US experience in particular—admitted to being duped. perhaps this was their introduction to US deceit, an alley to explore

Nayirah's "inventor" and coach was Lauri Fitz-Pegado, later Assistant Commerce Secretary. She also cooked up testimony to the UN, and would reappear in Iraq matters as promoter of a book about the April Fool's Day rescue of pfc Jessica Lynch.

Hill & Knowlton was paid US$14 million by the US government for its help in promoting the Gulf War. i don't know if Nayirah's purjury was part of that service or not

Nayirah's story has had remarkable survival, however. Home Box Office presented it as truth in their 2002 Live From Baghdad. HBO eventually added, after the final credits, that the incubator "allegations were never substantiated."

See Also

Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq

Sources

• opening statement of Sen. Faircloth to Riegle C'tee (http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/medsearch/FocusAreas/riegle_report/hearing/hearing_s04.htm)
• How Bush Sr sold the 1991 bombing of Iraq (http://rense.com/general33/sisie.htm) from Cohen Read My Apocalypse (but i can't find this book)
• PR Specialist of Debunked Persian Gulf War Incubator Story Promotes New Book on Lynch "Rescue" (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/17/1530239)
• Lessons in how to lie about Iraq (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,1020528,00.html)
• Lies, damn lies and war (http://www.dailymirror.lk/inside/worldw/021206.html)
• The disinformation campaign (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4270014,00.html)
• This time I'm scared  (http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4561023-103677,00.html)
• HBO adds disclaimer to Gulf War movie (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DK13Ak01.html)

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The psyops for the '91 war deserve their own section or even a full article. But Google knew no "Nayirah" in WP, so I assume none existed. But I also haven't the patience to write the full thing myself. Also, re title, she/the story is often, but perhaps not universally, called "Nurse Nayirah".