As a hate figure, the media couldn't have asked for more in Saddam Hussein. He was, as Bruce Cummings puts it, "a villain from Hollywood central casting". Within three weeks of the invasion of Kuwait, the American press could confidently refer to him, without fears of accusations of impartiality, as a "beast"(Washington Post - 20/8/90) or a" monster" (Newsweek - 20/8/90), whilst George Bush was feted in the New York Times as the "leader of all countries"(12-8-90).

The British press, likewise, sketched Saddam in demoniacal images and terminology. Taking arms against an inhuman beast who spoke only the language of agression made the option of war more palatable. The heroism and courage that fighting evil connotes, helps to stifle discourse in to what armed conflict actually means for the coalition and the people of Iraq. Little mention was made of the fact that many of the Iraqi people, Kurds and Shi'i Muslims, the ones who would suffered the most from internal repression, would, as conscripts, be the ones who would bear the brunt of military agression. Similarly, the fact that the weaponry that Iraq had ranged against the Coalition was hardware that the West had supplied him with during the Iraq - Iran War, remained largely undisturbed. It was because Hussein was too simplistically portrayed as the epitome of evil, that attention became diverted away from these discomforting facts and resulted in discourse being limited as to how Saddam can be brought to book militarily.