The Barbarities Of Saddam Hussein -- In Kuwait, 22 Babies Died When Invaders Stole Their Incubators

Sep 30, 1990

David Gergen

U.S. News & World Report

AS part of his propaganda war with the United States, Saddam Hussein has flung open the doors of hospitals in Baghdad to put hungry babies on display for American television cameras. But he barred Western journalists from hospitals in Kuwait. He has his reasons, it turns out.

Secret U.S. government cables, obtained by U.S. News & World Report, reveal shocking acts of brutality inflicted by the Iraqis against innocent citizens at Kuwaiti hospitals. The cables are based on eyewitness accounts from Kuwaiti doctors and others traumatized by what they have seen.

Among their allegations:

-- On the sixth day of their invasion, Iraqi soldiers reportedly entered the Adan Hospital in Fahaheel looking for hospital equipment to steal. They unplugged the oxygen to the incubators supporting 22 premature babies and made off with the incubators.

All 22 children died.

-- The next day, at the same hospital, Iraqi troops brought in a badly injured captain and soldier for treatment. When told both men had died, the troops accused hospital employees of killing them and shot five on the spot.

Two days later, the Iraqis cut off water to the hospital.

-- At the Mubarak hospital, Iraqis reportedly cut off the oxygen and IV drip supporting the 75-year-old mother of a Kuwaiti cabinet minister in the intensive-care unit. ``They just let her die,'' said one witness.

-- At a psychiatric hospital, Iraqi troops were said to have turned 250 mental patients, drug addicts and others into the streets. They also evicted 280 to 300 patients at the physiotherapy hospital near the Sulaibikhat roundabout to make way for a military headquarters. Some 80 Kuwaitis were kicked out of a dialysis facility at another hospital.

-- In a bizarre incident, witnesses said Iraqi soldiers settled near Kuwait's national zoo, expelled the zoo keepers and left the animals without food and water for over three days. They then let the animals out of their cages and ``started having fun shooting and killing them.'' A lion managed to escape and ran to a nearby neighborhood where it bit an 11-year old girl on the shoulder. She could not get proper treatment, developed a secondary infection and died a few days later.

These cruelties are part of a broader pattern of murder and repression unleashed by Saddam Hussein on his neighbors. Kuwaiti citizens fleeing in terror tell of widespread looting of their hospitals: Blood, frozen plasma, organ-transplant equipment, surgical theaters, X-ray machines, CAT scans, and ultrasound machines all have been stripped away.

Homes are ransacked. Rapes and executions are common. Families are thrown out of the country, their homes taken over by Iraqis. Clearly, Hussein is intent upon depopulating the nation of its own people and replacing them with his own.

Of late, the United States and its many allies have entered a tense war of nerves with Hussein. Perhaps a diplomatic solution can be found that will spare lives. Unfortunately, the fact that more Iraqi troops are pouring into Kuwait suggests bloodshed is more likely. Innocent Kuwaitis should not have to wait for relief.

America and her friends should mobilize through the United Nations to demand that the International Committee of the Red Cross be permitted to enter Kuwait immediately to investigate the plight of its citizens and to offer humanitarian help. The Red Cross already has a team in Baghdad, there to check on prisoners of war from the Iran-Iraq War, but Hussein turned down its request to go to Kuwait.

The press bears a responsibility to ensure that its readers and viewers get a full story. Too often, we become conveyor belts for the propaganda and photo opportunities of governments, even bloody tyrants like Hussein. We must keep digging out the the truth behind this awful man.

Finally, the U.S. must press forward to build a dossier of war crimes for possible trials after this conflict is resolved. Hussein and the men who knowingly carry out his orders must know now, not later, that to persist in these barbarities places them in personal jeopardy.