Iraqi soldiers removed Kuwaiti babies from incubators

Iraqi soldiers removed Kuwaiti babies from incubators
	UNSUPPORTED
	"During the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraqi soldiers entered Kuwaiti hospitals, took premature babies out of incubators and left them on the floor to die."
Domain	Politics & Elections
Tactic	Imposture; Propaganda Technique;
Era	Historical
First seen	1990
Origin	Testimony to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Washington, D.C., 10 October 1990
Last reviewed	2026-10-26
	Further reading: books on Politics & Elections

The claim that Iraqi soldiers removed Kuwaiti babies from incubators was one of the most influential stories of the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War. It reached the American public through the tearful testimony of a 15-year-old girl identified only as "Nayirah." Her identity, which was concealed at the time, was later revealed: she was the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the United States, and her appearance had been arranged with help from a public relations firm working for a Kuwaiti-funded campaign. Later investigations found no reliable evidence that the incubator killings happened as described.

The case is important not because Iraq's occupation of Kuwait was benign, since it was not, but because it shows how a single emotionally overwhelming story, presented through an apparently independent witness, can shape decisions about war.

The claim

On 10 October 1990, a teenager introduced only as Nayirah testified before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, an informal group of members of Congress chaired by Representatives Tom Lantos and John Porter. She said she had been volunteering at al-Addan hospital in Kuwait when Iraqi soldiers entered with guns, took babies out of incubators, took the incubators and left the children on the cold floor to die. She wept as she spoke. Organizers said her family name was being withheld to protect relatives in occupied Kuwait.

Background

Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990. In the months that followed, the US administration of President George H. W. Bush built an international coalition and sought public and congressional support for military action. Opinion in the United States was divided.

A group called Citizens for a Free Kuwait, funded overwhelmingly by the Kuwaiti government, hired the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton to make the case for intervention. The contract was worth roughly $10 million, among the largest foreign-funded PR campaigns of its time. Hill & Knowlton ran a broad campaign of media outreach, video news releases and briefings.

How it spread

The incubator story spread rapidly. President Bush referred to it repeatedly in speeches in the following weeks. Amnesty International included reports of baby deaths in a December 1990 report, which added credibility. In January 1991, as the Senate debated authorizing the use of force, several senators cited the incubator atrocities in their speeches. The Senate approved the resolution by 52 votes to 47, a narrow margin. It cannot be shown that the story changed any individual vote, but it was part of the moral case presented to lawmakers and the public.

How it was exposed

In January 1992, the publisher John R. MacArthur revealed in an op-ed in The New York Times that "Nayirah" was Nayirah al-Sabah, daughter of Saud Nasser al-Sabah, Kuwait's ambassador to the United States. This had not been disclosed to the caucus or the public. Subsequent reporting, including by the television program 60 Minutes and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, described Hill & Knowlton's role in preparing witnesses.

Investigators then looked for evidence. Human rights researchers who visited Kuwait after liberation, including from Middle East Watch, found no confirmation of the incubator story as told. Hospital staff interviewed by journalists said they had not seen babies taken from incubators. Amnesty International issued a correction, acknowledging it had found no reliable evidence for the claims it had repeated. An investigation commissioned by the Kuwaiti government from the firm Kroll Associates concluded that Nayirah had visited the hospital briefly and may have seen something there, but it did not substantiate the account of mass killings she had given.

What the evidence shows

The Iraqi occupation of Kuwait involved serious abuses, including torture, killings and widespread looting, and Iraqi forces did remove medical equipment from Kuwaiti hospitals. But the specific claim at the heart of Nayirah's testimony, that soldiers removed premature babies from incubators and left them to die on the floor, is unsupported by the evidence gathered after the war. The witness who presented it was not who she appeared to be, and her testimony was organized as part of a paid advocacy campaign.

Bullshitopedia classifies the claim as Unsupported rather than proven false: investigators could not confirm it, and the people best placed to witness it said it did not happen as described.

Why it worked

It was a perfect atrocity story: helpless victims, cruel perpetrators and a single vivid image.
The witness appeared to be an ordinary, frightened teenager, not a government representative. Withholding her name, for ostensibly humane reasons, also concealed her connection to the Kuwaiti government.
It was presented in a congressional setting, which lent it official weight, even though the caucus was not a formal committee and witnesses were not under oath.
It echoed earlier atrocity propaganda. During the First World War, British propaganda spread stories of German soldiers bayoneting Belgian babies, many of which were later found to be exaggerated or invented.

Lessons for readers

Ask who arranged a witness's testimony and who paid for it.
Anonymity can protect people, but it can also hide a conflict of interest.
The more a story seems designed to provoke outrage before a big decision, the more it deserves verification.
Real wrongdoing and invented atrocities can coexist. Exposing one false story does not mean the wider cause was unjust.

Sources

John R. MacArthur, "Remember Nayirah, Witness for Kuwait?" The New York Times, 6 January 1992.
John R. MacArthur, Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War (1992).
John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, Toxic Sludge Is Good for You! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (1995).
Amnesty International, statements correcting its December 1990 report on Kuwait (1991).