other war crimes allegations, however, remain unproven. After the invasion of Kuwait, and during the months of Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, a great many atrocity stories filtered out to be reported by the Western press. The most famous of these was the report that the Iraqis had removed as many as three hundred premature babies from incubators in Kuwait hospitals and sent the incubators back to Iraq, leaving the babies to die. This particular allegation now seems to have been fabricated, or at the least grossly exaggerated. This instance can serve as a cautionary tale regarding acceptance of any particular war crimes allegation.
As a practical matter, there is hardly any doubt that war crimes did occur in Kuwait, and on a scale large enough to preclude the argument that they were isolated excesses. It will surely be possible to show that the conduct was systematic, and that it was directed, encouraged, or at the very least acquiesced in by highest authority. Obtaining valid specifications individual victims, names and dates, lines of authority and responsibility will require exhaustive physical investigation and interviews in Kuwait and elsewhere.
It should be noted that the responsibility of commanders for the behavior of troops under their command is a broad one. The Yamashita principle, named for a Japanese officer convicted and hanged after World War II, holds that commanders are responsible for systematic excesses committed by their troops, whether or not the excesses were formally approved or authorized, or even if the commander was specifically aware that the crimes were being committed.22 Soldiers in war, killing and being killed, are prone to commit war crimes. It is the affirmative duty of commanders to restrain this tendency.
The operative element in the Yamashita principle seems to be the systematic character of criminal activity. Yamashita's troops carried out "a deliberate pla...