GOP senator says war may be 'criminal'

By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press

12/09/06 "AP" -- -- WASHINGTON - Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith, a Republican who voted in favor of the Iraq war in 2002 and has supported it ever since, now says the current U.S. war effort is "absurd" and "may even be criminal."

In an emotional speech on the Senate floor Thursday night, Smith called for changes in U.S. policy that could include rapid pullouts of U.S. troops from Iraq. He said he never would have voted for the conflict if he had known the intelligence that President Bush gave the American people was inaccurate.

"I for one am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day," Smith said. "That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore. ... So either we clear and hold and build, or let's go home."

A spokesman said Friday that Smith did not mean to call the war criminal in a legal sense.

Smith is up for re-election in 2008. His comments come a month after Republicans lost control of Congress - in large part because of voter unhappiness with the Iraq war - and shortly after the Iraq Study Group issued a blistering criticism of the administration's handling of the war.

Smith said he is "tired of paying the price of 10 or more of our troops dying a day. So let's cut and run or cut and walk, but let us fight the war on terror more intelligently than we have because we have fought this war in a very lamentable way."

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Transcript of Smith's entire speech: http://tinyurl.com/tmv33 [Open in new window]

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