OHanlon

July 8th, 2004
Transcription by Volunteer Citizen Journalist Nanci Miller.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay, great. So why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and your role here at Brookings Institute.
MICHAEL O'HANLON: Michael O'Hanlon, Senior Fellow at Brookings, and I study primarily security issues.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. So let's say -- During the build-up to the war in Iraq, give me an example of what would happen. Would a news producer call you up and then come in and talk to you for, you know, for some time. Just go through that process of what happens as a think tank expert.

Volunteer Citizen Journalist Nanci Miller has completed the Michael O'Hanlon transcription. O'Hanlon is a Defense Analyst for The Brookings Institute and frequent guest on NBC news and occassionally on the ABC and CBS nightly newscasts.

Here is one of the more prolific think tank scholars. He is a liberal hawk who was in favor of confronting Saddam. He says, "I had one of the more probably complex sets of views on Iraq, and so I was not always trying to maintain a single position."

He's got an interesting take on the war, and criticizes the Bush Administration for not trying harder to get a second resolution at the United Nations. But his critique comes from a political perspective and not a legal one. He is essentially still supportive of going to war and was upset that we couldn't get more allies to go along with this misadventure.