We Bought Them

If I wanted to Lie -- or, 

if We wanted to Lie or 

wanted to exaggerate, 

I wouldn't use, uh, 

My Daughter to Do so --

I could easily buy 

other people to Do it. 

 

The video news release, the High-tech PR blurb, Hill & Nolton generated an audio-video feast of images for the media. And one of the most compelling was Nayirah. 

Nayirah Al-Saud Al-Sabah :

".....I could not help but think of 

my nephew, who if born premature might, 

have died that day as well --" sniffle

She seemed to be alone before The Congressional Human Rights Caucus, 

identified only as “A Kuwaiti Escapee”. 

But we've discovered she wasn't alone at all. 

And she wasn't just a simple Kuwaiti escapee. 

In fact, just a few seats away was her father, 

Kuwait's Ambassador to the United States and Canada. For my people, Naara quickly slipped out of the caucus hearing back into the protective folds of her family, the extended royal family of Kuwait, headed by the Amir Jabir al- Sabah. I have to ask why she was not identified as your daughter when she gave that testimony to the House committee house caucus. Well, for security reasons, I didn't believe it was um uh just for to for her safety. Did uh the human rights caucus members and the chair people know who she was? They knew her identity. They knew her identity and they knew exactly what what the girl was telling them was the truth. How many people knew that she was the ambassador's daughter? 

....I didn't. 

I don't know who who knew --

Uh I I did not know she 

was The Ambassador's Daughter. 

When did you find out she was the ambassador's daughter? 

Uh not uh this is the first allegation 

I've had that she was 

The Ambassador's Daughter. 

Does it affect her credibility in your mind? 

I think uh it certainly should have been known uh at the time of the hearing. 

Uh it would have had bearing 

on what uh she might have said --

Yes, I think people members of Congress certainly and members of the public uh were entitled to know uh uh the source of of uh her testimony, therefore who she was --

If it became known that um it was somebody who was closely associated with obviously putting across a Kuwaiti Government position at a particular time when public opinion was very sensibly balanced in the United States at least about whether or not one should be going to war. 

It was it was a evenly balanced issue. 

Then it could well have tipped the balance one way that this was an entire show that was being arranged. 

Kuwaiti Ambassador Sheikh 

Saud Nasser Al-Saud Al-Sabah :

Whether she was My Daughter, 

my friend, or she was somebody else -- 

I could much more easily...

If I wanted to Lie -- or, 

if We wanted to Lie 

or wanted to exaggerate, 

I wouldn't use, uh, 

My Daughter to Do so --

I could easily buy 

other people to Do it. 

Did you think it would affect her credibility if people knew that that she was your daughter that she was part of the 

I had no problem with credibility. 

I think the girl came and spoke and told them what she actually saw with her own eyes. That wasn't just one person. There were a series of people who saw this whole thing happening. When we went back to Kuwait and we were we we interviewed many of the people who were there, they all all the testimony corroborated each each other. They're also the same thing. There weren't any incubators left behind in Kuwait anyway. We had to buy everything. Now, they ship it. 

Now, some of the human rights groups that that raised this in the first place, notably Amnesty, Middle East Watch, say that they went back there, they that when they investigated on the ground, first of all, all the incubators were accounted for. There was no incubators gone. 

And secondly, they could the only person who had who could claim to be an eyewitness to the atrocity was your daughter. 

I'm sorry about The Report, but what they saw is the new ones we bought, because we bought them and we had them airlifted to Kuwait immediately after Liberation. 

It's a very interesting story!

Pediatrician Ian Pollock. 

Well, it's an absurdity. The the amount of I mean, as we left on the third week, they still weren't getting water and food in properly, let alone medical supplies. I mean, it was the place.. the organization was very, very poor. 

Dr. David Chu found there was equipment missing from Kuwait hospitals, things like dentists chairs and very little had been replaced, especially not incubators because they were never taken in the first place. When I asked the engineer, one of the engineers about the story and he told me that uh they should not have had such a story because if the world had known about it later on, it would have come back to haunt them. These are some of the controversial incubators. When the Iraqi occupiers heard the story that they'd stolen them and killed babies in the process, they invited journalists into Kuwait hospitals to see for themselves. But the story persisted until independent investigators arrived on the scene. Then the picture started changing. The doctor who gave amnesty the information that babies died revised the number down to It finally settled at , of which died before the Iraqis arrived. The story evaporated. The number of people who you could find who had seen premature babies who had died unnecessarily was zero. It was horrifying. But what of Na's story that as a volunteer in one of the hospitals, she saw the atrocity? Would you let us talk to the one eyewitness we've been able to find? Who's your daughter? Would you let her tell her story to us about what she saw? I believe there is no reason why she told it to the whole world. So what she has told the whole world, I think there is no reason why she'd be telling you. I mean part of the whole system. But what the world didn't know at the time was that the witnesses appearing before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus that day were carefully coached by Hilland Nolton. There was training with these individuals to help them get more comfortable with the setting, the circumstances, the questions so that they could focus on their story. You know, that was clearly one of the roles that uh that Hill Nolton was able to help them with. A cynic might suspect that a $ million public relations campaign conducted by a major sophisticated agency like Hill and Nolton may have led uh to some excesses bordering on disinformation. That's um I think an exaggeration of of the views here. There wasn't a public relations media drive to to win the the emotions of the world with the Kuwaiti people because the facts spoke for themselves. Why was it necessary to to spend $ million? Who spent $ million? I don't know. You've been trying to drive this point. Well, no, it's it's on the record. Citizens for free Kuwait paid that much money to Hill and Nolton in a period of five or six months. Well, they paid um that much money to public relation firm because they are concerned citizens who are happen to be in this country when the invasion took place and they need people to help them. But we didn't need to do so as a government as an embassy. But Hill and Nolton documents disclose that the committee for a free Kuwait includes members of the Kuwaiti government. And the PR firm provided services to the ambassador himself, including daily assessments of his public performances and image. And as the weeks went by, even his appearance changed. Now, this is the situation we're facing is how are we going to put an end to this? So, we would get uh like the Kuwaiti ambassador and things that he would say and we would be able to go back to him the next day and say out of the out of your uh things that you said in a halfhour speech, here are the three things that work really well that really hit a responsive cord in the American public. 
It's terrifyingly effective public relations and a fantastic, incredible subversion of democracy. When you begin allowing public relations firms to set the agenda to make the decision on whether in a s in a sense to to organize the debate about whether whether or not we're going to go to war. 
That's the view of John Richard MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine. He's investigated the role of propaganda in selling the Gulf War and he's written a book about it coming out this spring. He's also explored the impact of that congressional hearing and a startling conflict of interest at the highest level.
 The at the time Congressman Porter and Lantis chaired the hearing on Kuwait, they also headed a private group, the Congressional Human Rights Foundation. 
MacArthur discovered a disturbing link between the Human Rights Foundation and the PR firm that was selling the war. 
The Congressional Human Rights Foundation literally operates out of Hill and Nolton's offices uh on the second floor of an an office complex called Washington Harbor in Georgetown. 
Hill and Nolton provides a $3000, in-kind charitable contribution to the Congressional Human Rights Foundation in the form of a rent reduction for the office space. The link between Hill and Nolton and the Human Rights Foundation doesn't end there. Frank Manowitz, vice chairman of Hill and Nolton, became a director of the Human Rights Foundation. And there are other interconnections. Citizens for a free Free Kuwait, donated $50,000 to the Congressional Human Rights Foundation after Iraq invaded Kuwait. a dramatic Congressman 
John Porter, co-chair of the Human Rights Caucus and now honorary co-chair of the Human Rights Foundation. the contributions that uh that uh came later from Citizens for Free Kuwait, I think were were uh given because uh they felt we had uh by holding the hearing and and allowing the American people to hear uh some of the atrocities going on in Kuwait uh were were helpful toward their goal of of ultimately freeing their country from the Iraqi invaders. 
And Hill and Nolton's connections don't just lead to the Human Rights Foundation, but straight into the White House, handling the Kuwaiti account for Hill and Nolton was Craig Fuller, chief of staff for George Bush when he was the vice president. 
Fuller attends domestic meetings, lunch meetings at the at the White House in the fall, at least one meeting where where policy uh in the Gulf is discussed. in fact, public relations policy because the meeting that Fuller goes to is all about how Bush can sell the war more effectively. 
Hill and Nolton Washington has circulated this material as the International Communications Council for Citizens for a Free Kuwait. 
To help sell the war, America's largest PR company entered the news business. Serve in in Congress in the There were daily newscasts and tempting sound bites. 
Adam is saying is uh better be worried that if he starts something we're going to finish it. 
Diplomacy alone rings hollow. 
Prayers that we pray for the peoples of Kuwait who are suffering very bitterly. 
Reports from the front. 
This is Ahmed Hammuda reporting from Saudi Arabia. 
Brought to the heartland by Hill and Nolton. 
Saddam Hussein was probably defeated in Kuwait before the American troops got there by the public relations campaign that persuaded the American people to send them. 
And I do hope that through you and through our friends in the United States, we can all find somehow any measures for rescuing my people.
 took the incubators and left the children to die on the cold floor. 
When you look back in retrospect, the things that stand out in your mind are some of those pictures, some of those images, some of those stories, and you think that in fact there was uh uh uh the kind of outcome we wanted to happen happened. 

She was a 15-year-old school girl and her story shocked an audience that extended far beyond the hearing room. 

"While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the children to die on the cold floor." 

Q. : Would you let us talk to the one eyewitness we've been able to find was your daughter? Would you let her tell her story to us about what she saw? 

I believe there is no reason why, 

she told it to the whole world.