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Nayirah Testimony (1990)

A fifteen-year-old girl lied to Congress, and it helped start a war.

In October 1990, a young woman identified only as "Nayirah" testified before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. Sobbing, she described Iraqi soldiers storming a Kuwaiti hospital, pulling babies from incubators, and leaving them to die on the cold floor. The testimony was devastating. It was repeated by senators, cited by President Bush, and broadcast widely. It helped build public support for the Gulf War.

It was also fabricated. "Nayirah" was actually Nayirah al-Sabah, the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. Her testimony had been organised and coached by Hill & Knowlton, one of the world's largest PR firms, which had been hired by the Kuwaiti government-in-exile for nearly $11 million. Independent investigations later found no credible evidence that the incubator incident happened as described.

The Nayirah testimony is a textbook case of how emotional manipulation can override critical thinking. Nobody questioned a crying teenager. Nobody asked who she was. Nobody verified the story before repeating it from the Senate floor. The entire episode was manufactured — the witness, the setting, the story — to produce a specific emotional reaction that would translate into political support for military action.

Emotion is not evidence. Especially when someone is spending millions to produce it.

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