Diary 1. The First Gulf War Baby Killing Lies
Diary 2. The Second Gulf War WMD Lies (to come)
Diary 3. The Iran War Wipe-Israel-Off-the-Map Lies (to come)
Propaganda and lies marks the beginning of every war. In countries with aggressive militaries and extensive arms manufacturing the propaganda is unending. Such countries present themselves as benign actors only interested in democracy, freedom, peace and justice. Conversely, the enemy is pictured as an evil monster and rapist who aims to rule the world. Baby killings stories are a preferred way to influence public opinion in the support for wars. During WW I such stories were used against German soldiers, who were illustrated with bayonets piercing babies. To launch the First Gulf War very similar propaganda and lies were created to demonize Saddam Hussein.
"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. . . Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
– Albert Einstein
The baby killing lies: Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, the Kuwaitis came to the US with millions of oil money at their disposal to hire the prestigious public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton. The job involved the demonizing of Saddam Hussein by fabricating baby killing incidents, to help sell war to the American public. That First Gulf War began on January 16, 1991, A cease-fire was declared on February 28, 1992.
However, the killings and the terrorism of the First Gulf War in Iraq never ceased. War planes continued their overflight and bombings, and a major UN study estimated that the U.S. led sanctions on the Iraqi people killed more than 500,000 Iraqi children. Notably, that same type of inhumane terrorism has now been imposed on the Iranian people. Furthermore, the wide dumping of our nuclear waste (DU munitions) Uranium 238, will cause millions of cancers, deformed births, and early deaths in Iraq and Iran for the next 4.5 billion years.
On October 10, 1990, a group called The Congressional Human Rights Caucus (HRC) held a hearing on Capitol Hill that provided the first opportunity for formal presentations of alleged Iraqi human rights violations. This was structured to look like an official congressional proceeding. In reality, the HRC chaired by California Democrat Tom Lantos and Illinois Republican John Porter, was just an association of politicians. Being real politicians Lantos and Porter gave credibility to this monumental sham. The Congressional Human Rights Foundation, a legally separate entity was given free space in the Hill & Knowlton’s Washington, DC office building.
Few observers noticed the irony when Hill & Knowlton’s used the term “human rights.” One HRC observer was John MacArthur, author of The Second Front -- perhaps the best book about the manipulation of the news media during the First Gulf War. MacArthur noticed a number of strange details about the October 1990 hearings. The Human Rights Caucus was not a committee of Congress, and therefore was not concerned about statutes that would make a witness hesitate before he or she lied . . . Lying under oath in front of a Congressional committee is a crime -- lying with anonymity to this caucus was simply public relations.
The most moving testimony on the first day was from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, her full name was confidential to prevent reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen in a Kuwait City hospital. “I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital,” Nayirah said. “While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . 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.” Her written testimony was passed out in media kits prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait.
Other witnesses using false names and occupations testified. One man who called himself Dr. Ebrahim claimed that he was a surgeon. He said, that he had personally buried 40 babies pulled from incubators by the Iraqis. After the war, when the scam was exposed as a total fraud, he admitted to being a dentist and said that he had never buried any babies, or seen any such atrocity. Dozens of costly video news releases (VNRs) about the odious testimonies were produced.
It was money well spent, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of “free” TV time. These VNRs were shown by eager TV news directors around the world who rarely (if ever) identified the Kuwait public relations firm as the source. TV stations and networks fed the well-crafted propaganda to innocent viewers, who assumed they were watching “real” journalism. Since the lies was consistent with the pro-war media views, no one had any interest in any fact checking. CNN and all major TV networks replayed this testimony over and over. Newspapers featured the HRC hearings. The entire Western media was played.
On December 19, 1990, Amnesty International (AI) published an 84-page report on the human rights violations. It stated, "Over 300 premature babies were reported to have died after Iraqi soldiers removed them from incubators, which were then looted." AI reported that an unnamed Red Crescent doctor said 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. The report quoted statements made before the Human Right Caucus by the fifteen year old Nayirah.
On January 8, 1991, U.S. executive director of AI reported the stories in testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Following the war reporters talked to doctors who worked at these Kuwait hospital and no one confirmed any killing of babies. AI had to apologize to me and all of their supporters for their role in the promotion of this propaganda. Nayirah, the key witness was found to be a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the U.S. was in the hearing room during her testimony.
This AI report also mentioned a woman who claimed to have had quadruplets at al Razi Hospital. She had gone home, then returned to find them out of their incubators. They died a day later at home. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."
President George H.Bush watched thr HRC hearings and was delighted. In mid-October, Bush reported that he had met with the Emir of Kuwait, who told him horrible tales about "newborn babies thrown out of incubators and the incubators then being shipped to Baghdad." He referred to the story five times during the next five weeks, once in an interview with David Frost. Bush distributed copies of these hearings to all the colleges in America. Prior to the voting for this war on January 10, 1991, senators who supported the Iraq war paroted the false testimony as reasons to go to war. The U.S. Apache strikes began a week later on January 17.
The UN coalition’s cost for the first Gulf War was about $60 billions. The Saudies paid half. Egypt’s dictator, Hosni Mubarak, was paid about $500,000 per soldier as a reward for participating. The U.S. also promised future annual aid to Egypt equal to two thirds the amount given to Israel, the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.
In November 2008, a report by the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses concluded that a “comprehensive analysis” resolved many questions about what caused Gulf War illness and what types of health care could address these serious conditions. At least one in four of the 697,000 veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War were estimated to be victims. The long-time care for these veterans will ad millions to the debt our children are saddled with.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” – Albert Einstein
In Unreliable Sources, Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted that “When a research team from the communications department of the University of Massachusetts surveyed public opinion and correlated it with knowledge of basic facts about U.S. policy in the region, they drew these conclusions. The more TV people watched, the fewer facts they knew. The less people knew in terms of basic facts, the more likely they were to support the Bush war policies.”