ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses how the mainstream media constructed "the crisis in the Gulf" through analysis of the primary frames, images, and discourse by which the crisis was presented to the public. He argues that the mainstream media fostered the military solution through its framing of the images and the discourse of the crisis, through its omissions, and through the ways that the media were manipulated and controlled by the George Bush administration and Pentagon to manufacture consent to its policies. The major media outlets, however, neither joined the suit, nor adequately covered it, and the war started and finished without any real challenge to the pool system. The author explores a classic case of media manipulation whereby the Bush administration leaked disinformation to the press to legitimate sending US troops to Saudi Arabia and to mobilize public support for this action.
