While the same basic format of analysis is applied to the 2003 Iraq section, the utility of this conflict for the project differs from the above as it is an attempt, from the American political elite, to construct the justification for action. Further to this, while the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan provided the three sites of production with a foreign actor to focus on, the 2003 invasion of Iraq was an American lead conflict. As a result of this the dynamics of interaction between the sites of production regarding foreign policy and security vary greatly as does the focus on the conflict. By investigating the processes by which the three meta-narratives are initially deployed by the Bush administration and subsequently (re)packaged and (re)distributed by both the media and the filmic sites of production these nuances are revealed. In constructing the image of a military intervention, the manner in which local populations react to a foreign presence is mobilized to either justify or demonize the conflict. Further to this, it becomes necessary for the political elite responsible for engaging in a foreign war to frame resistance from the local population in a way that maintains the legitimacy of their actions. As such the actions of an occupied population can either serve to reinforce the justification of a foreign intervention or delegitimize it. When the latter occurs the representations of these actors seek to distance them from the rest of the population. The pockets of resistance come to be depicted as ‘other’ to the local population, textual mechanisms are employed to strip them of their legitimacy in the conflict. While for Reagan’s representations of the Soviet Union’s conflict in Afghanistan, resistance fighters came to be seen as heroic defenders of freedom and self-determination, similar actors throughout the course of Bush’s 2003 war in Iraq were portrayed as terrorists and savage zealots. This chapter provides an analysis of the representations produced by President Bush and their subsequent coverage by Congress, media outlets, and film. By tracking the ebbs and flows of this meta-narrative the moments of salience and spikes of critiques among these actors will be displayed. In doing so the transitions between the production, sustaining, and challenge phases will be demonstrated highlighting the mechanisms that cause these shifts within the discursive helix.