WASHINGTON (AP) -- Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith, continuing his criticism of the Iraq war, said Sunday that U.S. troops in Iraq too often find themselves "being target practice in the middle of sectarian strife" that they neither created nor can stop.

AP

U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore.

Appearing on the ABC News show "This Week," Smith said he voted in favor of the use of force to overthrow Saddam Hussein, but does not support a strategy that appears to place U.S. troops in harm's way without a chance to win.

Smith, a Republican, made national headlines last week when he broke with President Bush over the war, calling the current U.S. war effort "absurd" and perhaps even "criminal."

In an emotional speech on the Senate floor, 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 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 Thursday night. "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."

Smith Sunday said he stands by his speech, which some have called a sign of crumbling Republican support for the war in the wake of the Nov. 7 elections, which turned over control of Congress to the Democrats.

Asked by host George Stephanopoulos what explained his "dramatic change of heart," Smith said he was enraged by a TV news report of yet another roadside bomb killing more U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

"I went from steaming to a boil," he said, "and I felt I had to speak out. Because if we are going to be there, let's win. If we're not, let's at least fight the war on terror in a way that makes sense."

Smith, who is up for re-election in 2008, said his use of the word "criminal" referred to a military strategy that appears to subject U.S. troops to lethal attacks without a clear plan for victory.

"That is dereliction of duty, that is deeply immoral," he said.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., appearing on the same program, called Smith's remarks -- and a new report by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group sharply criticizing the war effort -- signs of a "gigantic shift" in U.S. attitudes toward the war.

Biden, incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said the comments boiled down to choice of "either figure out how we are going to have traded a dictator for stability, or leave. That's a gigantic shift."

Smith, a longtime Bush ally, called the president a friend and said his criticism pained him, but he said he believed Bush has "spent way too much political capital not achieving victory" in Iraq.

"That ultimately must change," Smith said, adding that "now is the time for leaders to speak out."

Reaching back into Oregon history, Stephanopoulos asked Smith if he considered himself a latter-day version of Oregon Sens. Wayne Morse and Mark Hatfield. Morse was the only senator to oppose the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in Vietnam, while Hatfield played a key role in reducing spending on the Vietnam War.

"I remember every day that I sit in the seat of Mark Hatfield," Smith replied. "There are few more historic Oregonians."

Like Hatfield, Smith said he believes in sacrifice, but said neither he nor Hatfield nor the American people "support policies that lead us down the path to defeat."

The American people "are not quitters," Smith said, "but they are not fools either, and they will not long follow a strategy that leads to defeat."