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From: Democracy Now!
Re: Rundown 12-02-03
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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
A Debate on One of the Most Frequently Cited Justifications
for the 1991 Persian Gulf War: Did PR Firm Hill & Knowlton
Invent the Story of Iraqi Soldiers Killing Kuwaiti Babies
in Incubators?
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:58 A Debate on One of the Most Frequently
Cited Justifications for the 1991 Persian Gulf War: Did PR
Firm Hill & Knowlton Invent the Story of Iraqi Soldiers
Killing Kuwaiti Babies in Incubators?
We spend the hour with Lauri Fitz-Pegado, the woman who ran
the PR campaign for Hill and Knowlton, and John Stauber, co-author
of "Weapons Of Mass Deception."
On December 19, 1990, Amnesty International published an
84-page report on human rights violations in occupied Kuwait.
The report stated that, “300 premature babies were reported
to have died after Iraqi soldiers removed them from incubators,
which were then looted.”
This allegation, which was widely reported by the global
media, became one of the most often cited justifications for
the 1991 Gulf War. On January 9 1991, President George HW
Bush cited Amnesty’s report in a letter sent to campus
newspapers across the country. In the Senate, six senators
specifically cited the story in their speeches supporting
the resolution to give Bush authorization to use American
forces in Kuwait. That vote ultimately passed by a mere half-dozen
votes.
But the most dramatic moment in this story came on October
19, 1990, when a 15 year old Kuwaiti girl, identified simply
as Nayirah testified in front of the Congressional Human Rights
Caucus that she had personally witnessed 15 infants taken
from incubators by Iraqi forces who she said, “left
the babies on the coal floor to die.” California Democrat
Tom Lantos explained that her identity would be kept secret
to protect her family.
What was not said at the time is that Nayirah was the daughter
of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US, Saud Nasir al-Sabah.
By March of 1991, Amnesty International took the unprecedented
move of retracting its report, saying it had become clear
that the allegations were baseless.
On October 17, Democracy Now! spoke with author and PR Watch
co-founder John Stauber as well as retired Air Force Colonel
Sam Gardiner about the U.S. government’s use of psy-ops,
propaganda and information warfare in the build up to the
Iraq invasion.
Within that conversation John Stauber spoke about his findings
that a new Jessica Lynch-related book is: “being promoted
by … [the] Livingston Group’s Lauri Fitz-Pegado.
She is infamous for her work at Hill & Knowlton PR in
1990 coaching the Kuwaiti girl called "Nayirah"
in her shocking but phony testimony on Congressional hill
that she'd seen Iraqi soldiers murdering Kuwaiti babies. That
stunt helped propel the U.S. to war against Iraq in 1991.
Fitz-Pegado's client was the ruling family of Kuwait and the
baby-killing claims were later shown to be false.”
- “Toxic Sludge is Good for You” – excerpt
of a documentary about the book “Weapons of Mass Deception”
co-authored by PR Watch editors John Stauber and Sheldon
Rampton.
- Lauri Fitz-Pegado, principal at the Livingston Group.
She formerly worked at Gray and Company and Hill and Knowlton.
Lauri Fitz-Pegado also served as Assistant Secretary and
Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service
at the Department of Commerce under former President Clinton.
She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Link: www.livingstongroupdc.com
- John Stauber, co-founder of PR Watch and co-author of
the book, Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda
in Bush’s War on Iraq which takes a look at how the
Bush administration’s highly successful public relations
campaign sold the Iraqi war to the American public.
Link: www.prwatch.org
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu
(RAY MA MU), Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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