The Rhetorical Presidency of George H. W. Bush

4: Agency and Agent in George Bush’s Gulf War Rhetoric

C  Agency and Agent in George Bush’s Gulf War Rhetoric    Saddam Hussein had been president of Iraq for ten years when, in , his government began to build up a military force along its border with the small, wealthy nation of Kuwait. In February , Hussein denounced Kuwait, “advanc[ing] several political, territorial, and financial claims against” its government .1 Though the Kuwaitis rejected these claims, by July , , Iraqi soldiers were deployed on Kuwait’s border. The next day, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak initiated diplomatic talks between the two nations; meanwhile , “the United States Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, emphasize[d] the United States’ desire to improve relations with Iraq” and urged the United States “to avoid tough talk with Saddam Hussein,” who had by that time sent U.S. President George Bush “a message expressing his desire to resolve the crisis peacefully.”2 Even so, Hussein proceeded with the military buildup, and on August , at : . Kuwaiti time, the Iraqi army invaded. The world community responded quickly. Later that day, when the U.N. Security Council convened at the request of both Kuwait and the United States, “each of the five permanent members of the Council voiced opposition to the invasion. . . . Each also stressed the need for negotiation.”3 Other world diplomatic organizations denounced the invasion as well, including the Gulf Cooperation Council, the League of Arab States, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the European Community, and Member States of the United Nations.4 Over the next two weeks the international diplomatic community worked furiously, as the United Nations and European, Asian, Middle Eastern, and North American governments implemented trade sanctions and embargoes against Iraq and deployed military support to Saudi Arabia. By November  U.N. trade sanctions were deemed insufficient, and on November  the Security Council passed Resolution , which permitted the use of force after January , .5 President Bush, his press secretary Marlin Fitzwater, and deputy press sec- retary Roman Popaduik met with the American news media daily during the first month of the Iraqi crisis, in statements, briefings, informal question-andanswer exchanges with reporters, and formal news conferences. During the next eight months these rhetorical opportunities became important fora for disseminating the president’s perspective of the war, and for gaining both American and international support for war activities. In this chapter, I will show that the dramatic elements of George Bush’s war rhetoric reveal how he, as a diplomatic leader in the conflict, used his rhetorical situation to authoritatively define, defend, and shape the conflict through its many stages and to publicly manage issues of international authority and sovereignty. To support my arguments, I will briefly consider the contributions of the news media to the Persian Gulf War, as well as the relationship between Bush’s “procedural” philosophy of governance and his rhetorical choices.6 In – George Bush conducted “his” war in both the mediated public sphere and the more private diplomatic sphere and was undeniably a moving force behind the coalition that opposed Hussein’s Iraq. But scholars are sharply divided over the nature of the president’s influence in the conflict, with some condemning Bush as a wimpy warmonger—note the oxymoron—who led the world to war, and others hailing him as a brilliant diplomat who led the world through war.7 Such polarization is not entirely accurate; as David Demarest, Bush’s director of communications, explains, “‘Wimp’ was a fiction created in  . . . it was buried in the Dan Rather interview. And so we never really had to deal with the wimp issue after that. . . . My recollection is that we didn’t have serious concern about the warmonger issue. I mean, we managed the prosecution of Desert Shield very methodically. President Bush was never using extreme rhetoric throughout that process. The only time you heard warmonger was really out of the fringe.”8 Aside from inaccuracy, neither the “wimp” nor the “warmonger” characterization sufficiently explains how Bush the diplomat worked; thus, neither can provide much insight as to how and why the Gulf War evolved as it did. As the documents most useful to such an analysis will not be fully available for some time yet, the researcher must look to Bush’s public discourse for clues that may answer these questions. The Bush presidency has received less scholarly attention than one would think; perhaps his presidency pales against that of Reagan the Great Communicator or the charismatic Clinton. Much of the scholarship that does exist is the work of rhetoricians...