As regards the incubator story, it would be more accurate to say that it was never adequately documented, then to say that is it a known lie:
Activity 18, The Incubator Baby Incident
READING 18A: Incubator Baby Incident
The London Daily Telegraph, on September 5, 1990, reported the claim by the exiled Kuwaiti housing minister, Yahya al-Sumait, that "babies in the premature unit of one hospital had been removed from their incubators so that these, too, could be carried off." The story was repeated on Reuters, an electronic press service. Two days later the Los Angeles Times published the Reuters story about the atrocity accounts of a San Francisco woman identified as "Cindy" and her traveling companion "Rudy" who had been evacuated from occupied Kuwait. "Iraqis are . . . taking hospital equipment, babies out of incubators. Life-support systems are turned off."
READING18B: Nayirah's Testimony
On October 10, 1990, the congressional Human Rights Caucus provided an opportunity for Amnesty International to present their evidence against Iraq on Capitol Hill. The Caucus is not a committee of Congress and therefore does not require that a witness take an oath. An anonymous fifteen year old "Nayirah" allegedly a Kuwaiti with first hand knowledge of the crimes witnessed by "Cindy" from San Francisco. Nayirah reportedly could not give her last name because of fear of reprisals against her family. She testified tearfully:
"I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital. 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. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die. It was horrifying."
All major television networks, CNN and many local television stations replayed this testimony. Many newspapers reported on the hearing, and offer Nayirah's testimony.
READING 18C: President Bush
President Bush watched the hearings of the congressional Human Rights Caucus. In these hearings "Nayirah" reported on the Iraqis taking baby incubators in Kuwait. He was delighted with them. On October 15, 1990, President Bush reported that he had met with the Emir of Kuwait, who had told the President horrible tales about "newborn babies thrown out of incubators and the incubators then being shipped to Baghdad." He referred to the story five more times during the next five weeks, once in an interview with David Frost
READING 18D: The U.N. Security Council
On November 27, 1990, the U. N. Security Council heard "Dr. Issah Ibrahim," who explained that after the Iraqis took over "the hardest thing was burying the babies. Under my supervision, 120 newborn babies were buried the second week of the invasion. I myself buried 40 newborn babies that had been taken from their incubators by soldiers." An unidentified Kuwaiti refugee supported the testimony. The next day newspapers all over America reported on the testimony of this witness.
READING 18E: Middle East Watch's Report
Middle East Watch, a New York based human rights group, also pursued these reports. They cited a Dr. Ahmed al-Shatti who related the stories of Iraqi torture at a press conference in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, on October 14, 1990. The doctor was unable to document his claims, but other physicians gave similar reports. A Kuwaiti physician, Dr. Ali al-Hawil, said that between sixty to seventy babies had died in the Kuwait City maternity hospital after soldiers dismantled the premature-babies unit. He claimed that he and his colleagues buried fifty babies on August 20.
READING 18F: Amnesty International's Report
On December 19, 1990, Amnesty International published an 84-page report on the Human Rights violations in occupied Kuwait. The report stated, "In addition, over 300 premature babies were reported to have died after Iraqi soldiers removed them from incubators, which were then looted." The report cited three supports for this allegation. First, it reported that an unnamed Red Crescent doctor as saying that 312 premature babies at Maternity Hospital in al Sabah Medical Complex died after being taken from incubators and that he personally had buried 72. Second, the report also quoted the previous statement made before the Human Right Caucus offered by the anonymous fifteen year old "Nayirah." Third, the report mentioned a woman who had quadruplets at al Razi Hospital, who had gone home and then returned to find them out of their incubators. They died a day later at home. On January 8, 1991, U.S. executive director of Amnesty International reported the story in testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
READING 18G: Additional Support
On January 8, 1991, Stephen Solaraz, a leading Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, quoted verbatim the Amnesty International Report on this story. On the following day President Bush cited the Amnesty International Report in a letter sent to campus newspapers all over the country. In the Senate, six senators specifically cited the baby incubator story in their speeches supporting the resolution to give President Bush power to use American forces in Kuwait. On February 15, Vice President Dan Quayle declared in a speech that, "There are pictures Saddam doesn't want us to see. Pictures of premature babies in Kuwait that were tossed out of their incubators and left to die."
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READING 18H: Incubator Story Disputed
Some newspapers challenged the story. On September 30, 1990, the Seattle Times published an interview with a Palestinian physician contradicting the incubator allegations. On December 10, USA Today reported:
INCUBATOR STORY DISPUTED
A doctor just out of Kuwait challenges assertions by President Bush and Kuwait exiles that invading Iraqi soldiers had dumped babies out of incubators.
"Babies are dying in hospitals because Iraq's invasion has driven away staff who could save their lives," says Icelander Gisll Sigurdsson, who left Kuwait three weeks ago.
The incubator charge has been levied by Bush repeatedly when he recounts Iraqi atrocities.
"That news was not true," Sigurdsson said in Amman, Jordan. "However there were lots of babies who died because of lack of staff over the last few weeks."
Source: USA Today, December 10, 1990, p. 7A.
READING 18I: Sifting for the Truth on Both Sides
Truth is the first casualty, people always say gloomily at the prospect of war. Just how rapidly this happens can be illustrated by the case of the premature Kuwait babies, supposedly left to die last August by Iraqis who then removed the incubators to Baghdad. It has become the tale used by the Kuwait government in exile, as well as by President Bush, who invoked Iraqi horrors inflicted upon the innocent children of Kuwait in his speech. It should be said right away that there are thousands of examples of such Iraqi brutality and denial of elementary human rights, not just in Kuwait but in Iraq. But the story of baby mass murder is untrue.
Does it matter that the Iraqis, amid their looting and murders, did not kill scores if not hundreds of babies by stealing their incubators? It does matter. War brings a deluge of propaganda designed to gull us and to protect government. The incubator myth shows how quick we are to believe something when it grabs so savagely at our instincts.
Source: Adapted from Alexander Cockburn, "Sifting for the Truth on both Sides," Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1991.
READING 18J : After the War
After the war, John Martin of ABC News interviewed Dr. Mohammed Matar, director of Kuwait's primary health care system and his wife Dr. Fayeza Youssef, chief of obstetrics at the maternity hospital. They reported that the story was not true and was simply propaganda. Dr. Fahima Khafaji, a pediatrician in the maternity hospital, reported that the Iraqis did not do so at her hospital.
On January 6, 1992, John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, revealed that "Nayirah," who offered testimony before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 15, 1990, was really the daughter of Saud al-Sabah, Kuwait's ambassador to the United States. It was also disclosed that Hill and Knowlton, a large public relations firm, had helped prepare her testimony, and that she had rehearsed before video cameras in the firm's Washington headquarters.
The testimony presented before the United Nations Security Council on November 27 by the unidentified Kuwait refugee turned out to be Fatima Fahed, wife of the Kuwait minister of planning and a prominent Kuwait television personality. Dr. Issah Ibrahim, who also offered testimony at the Security Council, was really Dr. Ibrahim Behbehani, a dentist. When questioned after the war, he admitted that he had not seen babies taken from the incubators.
A subsequent private investigation by Kroll Associates--a firm paid by the Kuwait government--found a single, brief incident, in which perhaps a half dozen infants were removed from incubators during the occupation. They offered no evidence to support this position.
On February 4, 1992, the U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait, Edward W. Gnehm, claimed that there were three witnesses to the removal of babies from incubators. He railed against the "smug and cynical" human rights investigators and journalists who had challenged the story. He, however, refused to release the names of the witnesses. Two days later, Middle East Watch staff examined Gnehm's statement and concluded there was no hard evidence that such an incident had ever occurred.
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