Editing Gulf War (section)

====Public relations campaign targeting the public====
{{see also|Nayirah testimony}}
[[File:Powell, Schwarzkopf, and Wolfowitz at Cheney press conference, February 1991.jpg|thumb|Gen. [[Colin Powell]] (left), Gen. [[Norman Schwarzkopf Jr.]], and [[Paul Wolfowitz]] (right) listen as Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney addresses reporters regarding the 1991 Gulf War.]]

Although the Iraqi military committed human rights abuses during the invasion, the alleged incidents that received the most publicity in the US were fabrications of the [[public relations]] firm hired by the government of Kuwait to persuade Americans to support military intervention.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chardell |first=Daniel |date=29 June 2023 |title=The Origins of the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait Reconsidered |url=https://tnsr.org/2023/06/the-origins-of-the-iraqi-invasion-of-kuwait-reconsidered/ |website=Texas National Security Review}}</ref> Shortly after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the organization ''[[Citizens for a Free Kuwait]]'' was formed in the US. It hired the public relations firm [[Hill & Knowlton]] for about $11&nbsp;million, paid by [[Government of Kuwait|Kuwait's government]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html |title=How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf &#124; Center for Media and Democracy |publisher=Prwatch.org |access-date=1 February 2011|date=2004-10-28 }}</ref>

Among many other means of influencing US opinion, such as distributing books on Iraqi atrocities to US soldiers deployed in the region, "Free Kuwait" T-shirts and speakers to college campuses, and dozens of video news releases to television stations, the firm arranged for an appearance before a group of members of the [[United States Congress|US Congress]] in which a young woman identifying herself as a [[Nayirah testimony|nurse working in the Kuwait City hospital]] described Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators and letting them die on the floor.<ref name=kuwaitgate />

The story helped tip both the public and Congress towards a war with Iraq: six Congressmen said the testimony was enough for them to support military action against Iraq and seven Senators referenced the testimony in debate. The Senate supported the military actions in a 52–47 vote. However, a year after the war, this allegation was revealed to be a fabrication. The young woman who had testified was found to be a member of Kuwait's royal family and the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the US.<ref name=kuwaitgate><!-- Rowse (1992) "Kuwaitgate – killing of Kuwaiti babies by Iraqi soldiers exaggerated", Washington Monthly-->{{cite Q|Q123698876}}</ref> She had not lived in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion.{{Citation needed|date=February 2023}}

The details of the Hill & Knowlton public relations campaign, including the incubator testimony, were published in [[John R. MacArthur]]'s ''Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War'',<ref>[[John R. MacArthur]], ''Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War'' (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992)</ref> and came to wide public attention when an [[Op-ed]] by MacArthur was published in ''[[The New York Times]]''. This prompted a reexamination by [[Amnesty International]], which had originally promoted an account alleging even greater numbers of babies torn from incubators than the original fake testimony. After finding no evidence to support it, the organization issued a retraction. President Bush then repeated the incubator allegations on television.{{Citation needed|date=February 2023}}

In reality, the Iraqi Army did commit various well-documented crimes during its occupation of Kuwait, such as the [[summary execution|summary execution without trial]] of three brothers, after which their bodies were stacked and left to decay in a public street.{{sfnp|Makiya|1993|p=40}} Iraqi troops also ransacked and looted private Kuwaiti homes; one residence was repeatedly defecated in.{{sfnp|Makiya|1993|pp=31–33}} A resident later commented: "The whole thing was violence for the sake of violence, destruction for the sake of destruction&nbsp;... Imagine a [[Surrealism|surrealistic]] painting by [[Salvador Dalí]]".{{sfnp|Makiya|1993|p=32}}

US President Bush repeatedly compared Saddam Hussein to [[Hitler]].<ref>New York Times, 24 Oct. 1990, "[https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/24/world/mideast-tensions-no-compromise-on-kuwait-bush-says.html Mideast Tensions; No Compromise on Kuwait, Bush Says] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181112101338/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/24/world/mideast-tensions-no-compromise-on-kuwait-bush-says.html |date=12 November 2018 }}"</ref>