(Page 9 of 17) - Waging Wars Against Iraq: Metaphoric Constitution of the War in the US and the UK authored by Mutimer, David.

guarded references to appeasement. As I noted above, as early as the 10 September speech to the
TUC Blair noted that ‘when dealing with dictators ... diplomacy has to be backed by the certain
knowledge in the dictator’s mind that behind the diplomacy is the possibility of force being used.’
Similarly, in his address to Parliament at the end of the month, Blair notes: “he will draw the
conclusion dictators faced with a weakening will, always draw. That the international community
will talk but not act.” (Blair 24 September)

Blair is, thereby, tapping into the most iconic images of political evil and of inadequate response.
Hitler is an extremely powerful symbol, a symbol of unbridled evil. In a very real sense, Hitler is
Satan in our secular society. Because of this, deploying the Hitler metaphor is an extremely
powerful rhetorical move. In a stroke it quite literally demonises whomever is being compared to
Hitler, and renders whatever it is they are doing, together with their associates, as necessarily evil.
What is perhaps worse is that it forecloses debate about the nature the other identified with Hitler as
well as what must be done in response. Any disagreement with the judgement of evil is cast as
support for Hitler. Anything other than the violent elimination of this new Hitler can be case as
appeasement. Blair neatly creates this effect of equating Hitler with Saddam Hussein — who, in
another echo, he insists on calling by only a single name — and thus of appeasement with a lack of
action against Iraq, even while seeming to dismiss precisely this connection.

Iraq, al Qaeda and Terrorism

While Blair makes the more forceful connection between present and past evil, evoking the most
potent metaphor in the political lexicon, it is Bush that makes the ties between Hussein and
contemporary evil blunt. In both cases Blair and Bush draw links between Saddam Hussein and
contemporary terrorism in general and al Qaeda in particular. These connections are particularly
important in selling a war that takes place within the confines of the global war on terror.

Bush produces the connection between Iraq and the terrorist in both a blunt and more subtle form.
In his speech to the UN General Assembly in September, Bush made the links clearly

Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organizations that direct violence
against Iran, Israel, and Western governments. Iraqi dissidents abroad are targeted
for murder. In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former
American President. Iraq's government openly praised the attacks of September the
11th. And al Qaeda terrorists escaped from Afghanistan and are known to be in
Iraq. (Bush 12 September)

At this point the connection is with terrorists generally, and the possibility of a connection to al
Qaeda is fairly oblique. By the time of his address of 6 February 2003, at the time of Powell’s
presentation to the Security Council, Bush makes the connection to al Qaeda much more directly:

One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be
passed to terrorists, who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam
Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior