State of the Union – Military Reaction

BOB EDWARDS: President Bush spent much of last night’s State of the Union address laying out the case for military action against Iraq. He said Secretary of State Colin Powell will go to the United Nations next week to explain the U.S. position.

Michael O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution here in Washington. Good morning. What’s the UN Security Council meeting going to be like?

MICHAEL O’HANLON: I think President Bush clearly has decided now is the time to ratchet up the pressure on Saddam and to get the world behind us and getting ready for war. I’m not sure he wants to declare war next week, or tell the allies that this is it, but he is certainly going to say that the sand is trickling out of the hourglass pretty fast. And I think you’re going to see the entire month of February devoted to this kind of activity and this is just the first meeting as we try to ultimately work toward the vote if we can or at a minimum building a coalition for war by roughly the end of February, beginning of March.

BOB EDWARDS: Next Wednesday starts that clock on launching a war with Iraq.

Complete RealAudio Interview available at npr.org.