ABSTRACT
The frame developed by the Bush administration during the months preceding the attack on Iraq perfectly fits this scheme. From the very first moment to the last days of the crisis, the United States administration defines the Iraqi threat as grave and imminent and urges a simple and quick solution. The chapter presents the analysis of the White House's agenda as measured by the number of references to Iraq in official speeches. After a retrospective overview of the Iraq issue as one of the administration's priorities, the chapter then moves to the news media and compares the elite's attention to the issue with the media's one. It focuses on the public's perspective by correlating the people's agenda with the other actors' agendas. Before comparing the president's agenda with that of his staff, a specification on their most frequent communication practices is essential to choose the correct index for measuring the salience of the Iraq war in political discourse.
