Discourses on Wars and Conflicts: The Discursive Construction of Iraq in the US Press Dhiaa Kareem Ali In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Integrated) School of Education, Communication, and Language Sciences Newcastle University December 2018 ABSTRACT This study examines the discourses of US newspapers during the Iraq-Iran war (1980-1988) and the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq to see how the themes: i.e., Saddam, Iraqi people, Shiites, Halabja/the use of chemical weapons are discursively represented in these two wars. The research also examines whether there is a shift in the US press stance in its reporting by comparing the treatment of the themes during the two wars in question. To operationalise an interdisciplinary framework for this investigation the study employs corpus linguistics tools: frequency, collocates and concordances, in combination with the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) to CDA. The investigation reveals that during the Iraq-Iran war, the US press covered the conflicting official statements of all countries involved in the war, while there was an over-reliance on the opinions and statements of US officials during the US-led invasion, with Saddam’s voice being muted. In the same vein, although Saddam is portrayed negatively in the Iraq-Iran war, he is much more sharply vilified, Hilterlised and demonised in the US-led invasion, and constructed as a threat that needs to be faced and eliminated. With regard to the Iraqis/Shiites, there is also a shift in reporting in the two wars. In the 2003 US-led invasion they appear as worthy victims, a portrayal that fits in within the propaganda that the war had a humanitarian motive. However, the Iraqis/Shiites are never represented in this way during the Iraq-Iran war. In a similar way, whereas the US press coverage of Halabja and chemical weapons (in 1988) consists mainly of reports of the conflicting opinions and statements of Iraqi, Iranian and US officials during the Iran-Iraq war, this is not the case during the 2003 US-led invasion, when the history of the Halabja gassing and the use of chemical weapons by Iraq is brought back to the surface to serve the aims of demonising and criminalising Saddam in particular and Iraq in general: these events are used to support the claim that Iraq possessed WMDs and that there was a real threat that Saddam would use them. It is hoped that this thesis makes a multifaceted contribution to the field: first, in revealing the US press selective nature of human rights violations with regard to Iraqi social groups and showing how this was in line with US foreign policy; secondly, by contributing to our understanding of the quality of journalistic practices in the US during times of conflict and the way they may function to form the overall characteristics of US press discourses during iii international conflicts, especially conflicts in the Middle East. The study also highlights the mechanisms through which the US press discourses incorporate the official state voices in the processes of legitimising and persuading the public of the necessity for a war. iv DEDICATION v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT There have been many people who have walked alongside me during the last four years. They have guided me and made many opportunities available to me. First, I am immensely grateful to my supervisors, Dr Majid KhosraviNik, Dr Florian Zollmann for their unwavering guidance and patience from the beginning of this project to its completion. I would like to give a special thank you to Dr Majid for his continuous support and the fruitful and illuminating discussions and recommendations I had with him even before he becomes my official supervisor that helped the research to take shape and eventually come through. Also, I am very much indebted to Florian, who provided me with insightful feedback and encouraging comments throughout my journey. I also would like to thank my third supervisor Dr Peter Sercombe for his kind support and for giving me the learning opportunity to work with him as a teaching assistant in one of his modules. A very special thank goes out to my family for their endless support without whom it would not have been possible to complete this work. Love and appreciation go to my late father and mother who always supported me and believed in me and who were a constant source of support and encouragement. Without their support, it would have been impossible for me to reach where I am now. My thanks and prayers also go out to my late sister and brother; there hasn’t been a single day, I haven’t thought about you. Your memory will be eternal. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my brothers for being there for me anytime and anywhere. I would especially like to thank my wife Ban and my daughter Yara who have been extremely supportive of me throughout this entire process and have made countless sacrifices to help me get to this point. I must also express my sincere appreciation to Dr Paul Baker and Dr Mike Scott for their replies to my queries when I had some issues in regards to corpus linguistics. My acknowledgements would not be complete without thanking all my friends and colleagues for their support throughout this long journey. Special thanks go out to Abdulkareem Yaseen and Alaa Mohammed Khalaf in particular who were always there to offer their suggestions while sharing the same journey with me. vi vii Table of Contents Abstract ……………………………………………………………………..…….………….iii Dedication ……………………………………………………………………………………. v Acknowledgement ……………………………………………………………..…….……… vi Table of Content ……………..………………....…………………………………………….vii Lists of Tables ……………………………………………………………………...………..xiii List of Figures ………………………………………………………………………………..xiv List of Abbreviations ………………………………………………..……….…….…………xv Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Overview .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Objectives and rationale ................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Iraq wars in the media ...................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Why Iraq-Iran war (190-1988) vs 2003 US-led Invasion? .............................................. 6 1.5 Thesis overview ............................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2: IRAQ’S SOCIO-POLITICAL HISTORY ............................................................... 9 2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 9 2.2 Iraq: ethnic and religious groups ...................................................................................... 9 2.3 The Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988) ..................................................................................... 13 2.4 US Involvement in the Iraq-Iran War ............................................................................ 16 2.5 The Iraq-Iran war and the Iraqi Shi’ites ......................................................................... 17 2.6 Halabja Genocide ........................................................................................................... 19 2.7 Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait .............................................................................................. 20 2.8 First Gulf War ................................................................................................................ 22 2.9 The Shiite Uprising after the Gulf War 1991 ................................................................. 23 2.10 Second Gulf War (US-led Invasion) ............................................................................ 26 2.11 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 3: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ....................................................................... 30 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 30 viii 3.2 Critical Discourse Analysis ............................................................................................ 30 3.3 Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) .......................................................................... 34 3.4 Discourse and Ideology .................................................................................................. 35 3.5 Discourse and Representation ........................................................................................ 36 3.6 Discourse and Reproduction ........................................................................................... 38 3.7 Discourse and Access ..................................................................................................... 40 3.8 Media Discourse and War Reporting and Practices ....................................................... 41 3.8.1 War Reporting ......................................................................................................... 41 3.8.2 Press- state relationship ........................................................................................... 42 3.8.3 News Values and Selectivity ................................................................................... 44 3.8.4 News Gatekeeping