Political language is basically used as a powerful tool in winning the support as well as the consent of both the public
and the nation lawmakers, more especially at moments of crisis over which the nation may clearly divide. Whether in office or in the opposition,
political leaders who deliver public speeches within a national context often tend to manipulate language to best-suit the rhetorical mode or genre they choose to pass a message through in an effort to gain political advantage, maintain power, and shirk responsibility. Unable, and perhaps unwilling, to coerce, political leaders in the so-called democratic polities often need to ‘manufacture consent'' in order to undertake their agendas. Such a practice occurs through discourse and verbal representation. To this end, discourse can be seen as a cultural tradition that comprises the linguistic self-consciousness as well as the skills and methodologies brought into play to shape the convictions of a particular audience and sustain a positive image of the public speaker. Critical discourse analysis (CDA), on the other hand, takes another path to send a different message. It is a tool that helps a discourse analyst to illustrate how unmasking the written/spoken word (with overt and covert meaning) can bring about a different perspective and a deeper understanding of whose interest is being served. In short, CDA tries to illuminate ways in which the dominant forces in a society construct versions of reality that favor their often hidden agendas. As an effective tool used by scholars to decipher a text, CDA compels us to make a move from seeing words in the abstract to seeing them as loaded with meanings in a particular context. Politically speaking, no public speech is ever neutral. This paper uses CDA as a tool to study President George W. Bush''s speech "Address to the Nation on U.S. Policy in Iraq", which was delivered on January 10, 2007. The speech was transcribed and published by The New York Times on January 11, 2007. I recorded this speech, and then compared it with the newspaper transcript to verify its authenticity. The speech, as text, is framed within a particular yet uneasy political context in which several segments of the speech analyzed are problems mediated by hidden ideological assumptions and power relationships. The paper examines chunks of public discourse that intensify ‘political correctness'' through the overuse and repetition of key words, such as combating terror/terrorist/Al-Qaeda for the purpose of maintaining troop security, home safety, and world peace, as well as expediting the global war on terror. The paper analyses such repetition for frequency, duration, intensity, and effects. The paper also studies the effect of the association technique, whether explicit or implicit, whose use triggers intense emotions shaping the future, not only of the U.S. but also that of the world at large. The confessional and apologetic tone of the speech, admitting ‘unidentified'' failings of previous strategies and outlining a new ‘more effective'' strategy for Iraq through sending more troops to secure Baghdad, is analyzed on the levels of discursive practices that include rhetorical composition of words and phrases, omissions, diversion, and confusion, to mention only a few. By showing this, the speech becomes more than just words in the text; it discloses how those words were used in that particular political context. In my analysis of President Bush''s speech, I drew on critical approaches deriving from the literature in various disciplinary fields, such as critical
linguistics and pragmatics, from which CDA uses analytic tools to address persistent questions about power relationships and ideology. The paper concludes by identifying unresolved issues and challenges underlying the speech, for the speech brought up to the fore nothing more than an adjustment of the initial mission assigned to the American armed forces on the eve of invading Iraq ily described by the President, soon after the fall of Baghdad, as "Mission Accomplished". Ironically, much of the substance that the speech contained was previously transmitted through earlier speeches delivered by President Bush in the U.S. Congress and elsewhere.