Before his January 28 State of the Union address, President Bush's job-approval rating stood at 60 percent, according to Gallup-CNN-USA Today polling. Last weekend, his rating was 61. In statistical terms, nothing happened.

Actually, the speech had a mixed effect. The president spent a lot of time talking about domestic issues, such as Medicare, energy, and the economy. But on those issues, the needle didn't move. The number of Americans who say the president is not paying enough attention to the economy actually went up after his speech, to 60 percent from 55 percent. The public sensed that what the president really wanted to talk about was Iraq. And the speech did boost Bush's rating on foreign affairs.

Does the public feel that Bush made a convincing case for military action in Iraq? Yes, sort of. Before the speech, 49 percent felt that he had made a persuasive case for war. Afterward, 53 percent felt that way. The needle moved--a little--but wasn't exactly pointing to war fever.

Americans are still asking, "Why now?" According to last weekend's Gallup Poll, 90 percent of Americans think Iraq poses a threat to the United States, but fewer than 30 percent think it's an immediate threat. More than 60 percent call Iraq a "long-term threat."

Americans want to know why, when the nation has so many pressing problems, the president thinks it's necessary to act now. In fact, the public seems to worry that the president is a little too gung-ho for war. Nearly half think that the Bush administration is likely to present evidence it knows is inaccurate in order to bolster its case against Iraq. Almost 60 percent think the administration is willing to conceal evidence that goes against the president's position. Clearly, the American public does not entirely trust the Bush administration on Iraq.

The exception to not being trusted is Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Asked "Who do you trust more when it comes to U.S. policy on Iraq, Bush or Powell?" the public had dramatically more faith in Powell. People replied "Powell" by more than 2-to-1 (63 percent to 24 percent).

That means the administration picked exactly the right person to make its case. Powell was a reluctant warrior in the first Bush administration, 12 years ago. Last year, he was the chief advocate of giving Saddam Hussein one last chance to comply with the U.N. inspection process. "I am one of the principal authors of [U.N. Security Council Resolution] 1441," Powell noted last month. "And for better or worse, I can take some credit for having been one of its champions."

Doves in the United States and abroad saw Powell as their champion. They were shocked to hear Powell declare on January 23, "Inspections will not work." What led Powell to change his mind? He put it this way: "I have been consistent throughout this entire process. And as I've watched the process unfold, I have watched Iraq go by every diplomatic exit ramp that was put there for them."

Americans are reluctant warriors -- so are America's allies. What better way for the administration to make the case for war than to show the reluctant warrior Powell coming around? "The Bush administration is betting everything that Powell is going to be able to convince the world that we've actually got the goods on the Iraqis," observed international relations scholar Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution.

But what exactly are "the goods"? Weapons of mass destruction? Facilities to make them? Ties to Al Qaeda? Any of those would qualify as the infamous "smoking gun"--the one Iraq insists the U.N. inspectors will never find.

Powell claims that the point of the inspections is not to find a smoking gun but to test Iraq's commitment to disarmament. According to chief inspector Hans Blix, Iraq has failed that test. "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it," Blix reported to the U.N. Security Council last month.

On January 31, British Prime Minister Tony Blair drew a distinction between two views of the inspections process. "The U.N. inspectors did not go back into Iraq to play a game of hide-and-seek with Saddam," he said. "They didn't go back in as a detective agency. They went back in under an authority that said [Iraq] had to cooperate fully in every respect--the interview of witnesses, not just access to sites; honest, transparent declarations of the material they had. They're not doing that."

The issue is, who has the greater burden of proof? Iraq claims that the burden lies with the inspectors to find a smoking gun. The United States and Britain claim that the burden is on Iraq to prove it is disarming. On that issue, the American people are split, according to Gallup: 46 percent say the inspectors need to come up with a smoking gun; 47 percent say Iraq should have to prove it's disarming.

The Bush administration's job is to persuade Americans to look at the inspectors as auditors verifying whether Iraq is disarming, not as detectives looking for incriminating evidence. That may be difficult, because the American people are addicted to TV shows about crime-scene investigators.

William Schneider is a resident fellow at AEI.