President Obama plans to make a major speech to the nation Wednesday that will lay out his plans for confronting and defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, according to a White House spokeswoman.
NBC News, in an interview with Obama that will air Sunday, first reported the Wednesday speech, noting that the president does not expect to ask Congress for authority to expand the mission against ISIS.
“The next phase is to start going on some offense,” Obama said in an interview with new “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd. “We have to get an Iraqi government in place, and I’m optimistic that next week we should be able to get that done.”
Obama said he would first meet with congressional leaders on Tuesday to outline his strategy and plans, then address the nation in a speech on Wednesday.
The president quickly cautioned that he wasn’t announcing the start of another war in Iraq or Syria and said the military action will not involve ground troops.
“This is not going to be an announcement about U.S. ground troops, this is not the equivalent of the Iraq war,” he said. “What this is is similar to the kinds of counter-terrorism campaigns that we have been engaging in consistently over the last five or six or seven years.”
“The good news is that because of American leadership, we have, I believe, a broad-based coalition both internationally and regionally to be able to deal with the problem,” he added.
