Nayirah al-Ṣabaḥ

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Nayirah al-Sabah pictured during testimony before the US Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 1990

Nurse Nayirah was a young Kuwaiti woman who, in the run up to the 1991 Gulf war, gave controversial testimony before the non-governmental Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990. She was presented as a 15 year old volunteer nursing assistant who needed to hide her identity for security reasons. In her emotional testimony, Nayirah stated that she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators, take the incubators, and leave the babies to die. Though reporters did not have access to Kuwait at the time, her testimony was regarded as credible and was widely publicized. It was cited numerous times by United States senators and the president in their rationale to back Kuwait in the Gulf War and it had a massive impact on both US and Western public opinion about the impending war.

In 1992, it was revealed that Nayirah's last name was al-Sabah and that she was the daughter of Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah , the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States and member of the Kuwaiti royal family who had been sitting just a few feet from her as she gave her evidence. It was further revealed that her testimony was organized as part of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait public relations campaign which was run by the advertising and PR firm Hill & Knowlton for the Kuwaiti government.

al-Sabah's testimony is now acknowledged as having been the most spectacular and effective stunt in a $10 million bought-and-paid-for campaign of cynical wartime propaganda orchestrated by the Kuwaiti government, which arguably swung the balance in what was a close Congressional vote on the use of the US military against the Iraqi invasion.

See Also

• To Sell a war - Comprehensive CBC video of the episode.
• How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf - PR Watch. A solid account of the PR shenanigans leading to war. Exerpted from 'Toxic Sludge is Good for you' - Chapter 10 - ISBN 1-56751-060-4
• Confabulations of Nurse Nayirah - Phenomenological Analysis of Obscured Events
• Wikipedia page - Wikipedia marshalls a lot of on the one hand - on the other hand detail with lots of links. As ever, it is a useful reference on the issue.