Republican Senator says Iraq war may be "criminal"

[NNN0LHI]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003468687_websmith08.html

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Republican Sen. Gordon Smith, who voted in favor of the Iraq war and has supported it ever since, now says the current U.S. war effort is "absurd" and "may even be criminal."

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

Citing the hundreds of billions of dollars spent and the nearly 3,000 American deaths, Smith said: "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. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore." snip

"Better late than never," said Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon after speaking to the City Club of Portland.

Blumenauer, who opposed the war, has said he will make a decision next year on a possible Senate bid. He said he was less concerned with taking Smith to task than in a "broader context" of seeing the Congress oversee conduct of the war and in holding Republican senators who would stand for election in 2008 accountable for their decisions on it.

[elocs]

1. These are the same type of senators which should be recruited to convict after impeachment.

But instead, here at DU we see such senators and others called hypocrites and vilified, their motives questioned. Yes all of you Republicans and neocons are scum, but please help us to convict the president after impeachment. Let's see how that works out. This nation is severely polarized. As the song For What It's Worth says, "There's battle lines being drawn, Nobody's right if everybody's wrong". Both sides believe the other is all and always wrong and that is not a formula for progress.

[malaise]

2. May?

That took him long. One more fugging oopportunist sees the light.

[ThomWV]

3. Good of him to notice ....

[AnnInLa]

4. Now backtracking

said he didn't mean "criminal" in the criminal sense.

Oy.