“Baby incubator” lie reflects US history of fanning hatred, triggering war

Cartoon by Lu Lingxing. (People’s Daily Online)

In October 1990, US intelligence agencies fabricated the “baby incubator” story, which incited anger among US citizens and eventually led to the aggravation of the Gulf War.

“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 babies on the cold floor to die,” a tearful 15-year-old girl who claimed to be a Kuwaiti volunteer testified against Iraqi soldiers before a US congressional hearing.

The testimony was later intensively reported in the US, which sparked anger towards Iraq among the American public. US politicians also repeatedly talked about the “tragedy” in the Middle Eastern country. According to a report by the BBC, the then US President George H. W. Bush had publicly cited the testimony at least six times to help justify American engagement in the Gulf War.

In 1991, the US Congress authorized the use of force against Iraq, initiating the Gulf War. But after the Gulf War ended, some US media outlets revealed that the “baby incubator” story had been fabricated by the US and that Kuwaiti medical workers had long denied the existence of the “Kuwaiti volunteer.”

Clearly, the “baby incubator” story was nothing but a farcical show staged by US politicians and US mainstream media. The real intention and machinations of the powers that be in the US were to take aim at achieving their own political ends by stirring up public sentiment through the direct manipulation of public opinion.

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