Senator Smith defends about-face on Iraq war to GOP conference

Sen. Gordon Smith tells a conference that we should leave
"this ancient civil war, because we can't fix that"

On Friday night, Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) addressed the Dorchester Conference in Seaside, where he vigorously defended his about-face on the war in Iraq.

Recall that in December, Smith, from the well of the Senate denounced the presidents war strategy as “absurd” and went so far as to say it “may even be criminal.” He has become a strident opponent of Bush’s “surge” plan in recent weeks.

"If you're really going to do a surge, you don't do it with 20,000, you do it with 250,000," he said, noting that Baghdad is a city of nearly 7 million people. But he said the United States cannot afford such a response; instead it has to come from the Iraqi Army.

Smith said he recently spoke with Gen. David Petraeus, the new top military commander in Iraq, who told him the troop surge has only a one in four chance of succeeding.

He said his views are aimed at showing the Iraqi government that U.S. patience is "not inexhaustible."

[SNIP]

Smith has been blunt about his concerns for holding on to his seat, given the political climate in Oregon and nationally. But he said his changing views on the war have nothing to do with being re-elected.

"That's their opinion," he said, in an earlier interview Friday with The Oregonian. He said he has raised his objections at every opportunity with top administration officials, including the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

"I was always told to be patient, that it would get better," he said, "and it did not."

He said he decided to become more outspoken after an incident in October, in which the Iraqi government ordered the release of a captured militia leader. "At that point, I recognized we did not have a winning strategy," he said.

Smith was one of the 14 Senators to vote against General Casey’s confirmation as Secretary of the Army.

I want to believe that he is truly converted, but I dunno. Smith is the only Republican senator representing a Pacific Coast state. Oregon is the deepest shade of blue there is. And Smith is a craven opportunist and a politician to the max. What he has for breakfast is a political decision.

So it is no surprise that his rhetoric began to shift around the second week of November. He claims he started having doubts around May of last year, but those doubts did not dissuade him from continuing to cheerlead for the war. Those doubts only crept into his public statements after his party lost both houses, however, so color me skeptical on his sincerity.