Abstract

The present study examines how the build-up to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was metaphorically constructed in pro- and anti-war newspaper opinion/editorial discourse. Drawing on methodological insights from critical discourse analysis and pragma-dialectical argumentation theory, the fallacious discussion used in the pro-war op/eds to build up a ‘moral/legal case’ for war on Iraq, based on adversarial argumentation, is problematised. An investigation of how the US official perspective about the ‘legitimacy’ of attacking Iraq has managed forcefully to creep into the US–British mainstream newspaper op/ed argumentation through the manipulative use of metaphor is explored here. This fallacious derailment of the discussion is countered by the anti-war op/ed metaphorical argumentation. The op/ed articles analysed here thematise key controversial issues regarding the alleged Iraqi possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Saddam's links to Al-Qaeda and the legitimacy of the US ‘preemptive’ war without the authorisation of the UN Security Council. The political debate of the US run-up to Iraq War was a contest between metaphors and a battle over imagery. This article illustrates how the deployment of metaphors with high public resonance is a useful rhetorical tool to fallaciously advance contentious claims.