George W Bush's State of the Union Address (28th Jan 2003)

             Bush is the President to deliver the annual State on the Union Address; in the last part to be considered here he deals with the foreign policy and therefore the controversial topic of a possible war against Iraq. .
             First, I will give a broad overview about the problem Bush talks about in this part of his speech, second analyse dominant stylistic devices he uses and finally explain my personal assessment of the speech.
             Now let's have a quick look on the development of the crisis. .
             Having been the dictator of Iraq since 1979, Saddam Hussein is said to have chemical and biological weapons which violate the UN Charta. Considering previous aggressive and cruel actions by Saddam as invading Iran and later on, in 1990, Kuwait this would be a potential danger to other states, particularly as Saddam Hussein doesn't seem to have changed in the meantime. Although he officially stated to have fulfilled the UN-regulations about his disarmament he had accepted after his defeat in the Second Gulf War, Hussein still didn't grant weapon inspectors unlimited access to his palace. Finally, in 1998 he even denied any inspections, which lead to an extension of the UN oil embargo against Iraq.
             During the last six months the USA again increased their pressure on Iraq to accept inspections, and the UN Security Council passed a resolution which threatened with a military strike in case of non-cooperation by Iraq. Having reinforced inspections by the UN, the Bush administration is still not satisfied and continues to assemble troops in the gulf region since Bush beliefs that Saddam is only hiding his weaponry. Now there is some hot discussion among politicians if to support a war, probably even without a UN mandate; e.g. the German government is clearly opposing those plans. Thus Bush, an advocate of a "pre-emptive" strike has a lot of work to build a coalition and to convince its own people. .
             In his speech Bush talks about liberating Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein, helping them materially and bringing them freedom.