I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

First tonight a new political punch in the gut of a president more battered and bruised than ever over Iraq. It comes from a Republican senator who had supported the war, but now Gordon Smith of Oregon is publicly blasting the president's Iraq policy in very harsh and emotional terms, and even questioning whether it's a crime. Our senior political correspondent Candy Crowley has more on Smith's dramatic about-face.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, from the beginning of the Iraq war to now, the president has been able to rely on a fairly broad base of Republican lawmakers. He can't anymore.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): The Republican senator from Oregon describes himself as quiet supporter of the Iraq war. He is neither any longer.

SEN. GORDON SMITH (R), OREGON: And 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.

CROWLEY: Et tu Gordon Smith.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator from Oregon.

CROWLEY: It happened quietly in the early evening just before the year-end recess, Smith who has a reputation for bringing passion to the Senate floor brought that in an unblinking brutal assessment about the situation on the ground, pre-war intelligence and the president.

SMITH: I believe him to have a stubborn backbone. He is not guilty of perfidy but I do believe he is guilty of believing bad intelligence and giving us the same.

CROWLEY: It is the first defection from what has been a reliable roster of Republicans supporting the Iraq war.

SMITH: I tried to be a good soldier in this chamber. I've tried to support our president, believing at the time that we had been given good intelligence.

CROWLEY: He is unlikely to be the last political soldier doing an about-face.

STU ROTHENBERG, POLITICAL ANALYST: Now that the midterms are over, now that the study group report is out, I think we're increasingly going to see what Republicans really think about the conduct of the war.

CROWLEY: And within a day of Smith's speech, it became a Democratic bullet point, advantaging what is a blow from the base of a president already under intense pressure. A war-weary public, a newly strengthened Democratic Party and a damming report from a panel full of marquee names, but there is the politics of the situation...

(SHOTS)

CROWLEY: ... and there is the reality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a lame duck president and while that means he doesn't have a lot of power any more or his power reduced. It also means that the impact on him, the influence on him that people can have is frankly little.

CROWLEY: Aides say at least a dozen of the senator's Republican colleagues have approached him with positive responses, including they say, one extremely conservative senator who told Smith, that's how I feel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: Smith is still looking at the Iraq Study Group recommendations, but he says it seems to call for cut and walk. I'd rather do it quicker than later, says Smith, but either way, it won't be pretty. Wolf?

BLITZER: Candy Crowley, a powerful story. Thank you very much.

On Capitol Hill tonight, a top Senate Democrat and war critic is applauding Senator Smith's decision to speak out against the president, and his Iraq policy. I spoke with the incoming Majority Whip Dick Durbin here in THE SITUATION ROOM a little while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL), DEMOCRATIC WHIP: Let me say something about Gordon Smith, my Republican colleague from Oregon. He is widely respected. He's a thoughtful man. He's an independent thinker. I know that what he read on the Senate floor is something he personally wrote. I actually went up to him ahead of time. I didn't know the topic of his speech and I saw that he had written it out in his own hand. It came from the heart.

And when he says that he believes this must come to an end, I know it's heartfelt and when he says that it's gone beyond limit of making a bad policy decision, I think he's right. You know we thought that perhaps the 3,000th soldier, American soldier to die in Iraq wouldn't occur until after January 1, but at the pace that we're losing American soldiers in December, sadly, it may happen sooner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: At the White House tonight President Bush is wrapping up a week. It's clearly dominated by his Iraq problems and a bipartisan panel's rebuke of his policy. And he scheduled a new series of Iraq strategy sessions in the immediate days ahead.

Let's turn to our White House correspondent Ed Henry -- Ed.

ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, Republican Senator Gordon Smith's speech is a stark reminder for this president that he can no longer count on our take for granted Republican support for this war and also come January Republicans will not be in charge of Congress. So a president who for the first six years of his administration paid little attention to Congress all of a sudden is doing a lot of outreach.

It was more consultation today, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in to talk to the president about the way forward in Iraq, but when you listen closely to the president's words, he's really speaking in generalities about the Iraq Study Group's report. He really will not be pinned down on specifics, what potential changes he may make. And when you listen closely to the words of his spokesman, Tony Snow, he's also making clear that while the president is reaching out while he's listening, in the end he's going to do what he wants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We talked about Iraq. And we talked about the need for a new way forward in Iraq, and we talked about the need to work together on this important subject.

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: What the president's going to do is what you would expect a commander in chief to do, which is to take a careful and thoughtful look at the report. And as you know, there are other recommendations and suggestions and analyses coming his way in the very near future. And it's his job, and people around the table understand this to try to come up with the best complex of policies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: Now those other reports that Tony Snow is referring to, of course the Defense Department, State Department as well as the National Security Council here at the White House conducting separate internal reviews of Iraq policy. The president right now in listening mode, as they say -- he's going to have listening sessions next week, Monday at the State Department, Tuesday a secure video conferences here at the White House talking to military commanders in field. Wednesday he'll be at the Pentagon talking to top officials there.

The bottom line is the president is preparing a speech likely to come by the end of the month where he will finally lay out his changes on his Iraq policy. Wolf?

BLITZER: And maybe even before Christmas that speech. Thanks, Ed Henry reporting for us.

Gordon Smith a powerful, powerful speech, sounding very much like a Democratic critic John Murtha. We're going to continue to follow this story for you.

A brand new CNN poll shows President Bush's job approval rating remains stuck below 40 percent as he faces intense new pressure to change his approach in Iraq. Thirty-seven percent of Americans now say they approve of the way Mr. Bush is doing his job. That's a point lower than his approval rating in our survey late November.

A new Associated Press/Ipsos poll puts Mr. Bush's approval rating down at 33 percent and it shows his approval rating on Iraq is at an all-time low. Only 27 percent approve of the way he's handling the situation in Iraq. Seventy-one percent disapprove.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, the grim search for bodies goes on. Seems each day people are kidnapped, tortured and then killed and dumped. Our Nic Robertson joins us from Baghdad with more on this. Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, every day we get grim statistics from the police about bodies found around the city, dozens of them to strewn throughout the city, many of them shot in the head, shot in the chest. Had their hands bound, eyes blindfolded, many showed signs of torture, the results of sectarian killings, we're told. Today we got a rare opportunity to get out with the police and see how they deal with this problem.

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ROBERTSON (voice-over): On Iraq's rivers, a grim duty, searching for bodies. Baghdad's fable (ph) Tigris River has become a dumping ground for the sectarian death squads stalking the city streets.

SAMIR FATAH, POLICE DRIVER (through translator): One day we recovered 70 bodies. They had been kidnapped and killed by terrorists.

ROBERTSON: as the killings have escalated, the river police are getting busier.

MUSHTAQ AQEEL, POLICE DRIVER (through translator): Most of my job is looking for bodies. Because of the situation, we have no other work now.

ROBERTSON: Each day patrols go out. Each day they say they find at least six or seven bodies, although none of this training mission.

(on camera): The police patrol about 100 kilometers about 60 mimes of the river here. They say there are some places it's so dangerous when they go there, they need to take six patrol boats.

(voice-over): Police divers (inaudible) joined the force together 12 years ago. They trained for life saving. Now young recruits are taught how to recover the dead.

FATAH (through translator): Most of the bodies we recover, their hands are tied and they've been riddled with bullets. Most have been killed intentionally.

ROBERTSON: As the daily sectarian killings have grown to 40, 50, sometimes more than 60 so far this year, it has become routine for relatives missing loved ones to come to the river and search. Fatah and Aqeel recently returned from training in the U.S. Their patrol boats and equipment are U.S. supplied, part of the beef up of Iraqi security forces. Both are happy for the support. Both feel powerless to stop the killings.

AQEEL (through translator): My job affects me psychologically because I live other people's grief, people who have lost a brother, a father. I live moments of tragedy, not happy moments.

ROBERTSON: On the Tigris River, as in the rest of Iraq, there is no doubt plain sailing is not in their future.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: Little hope for an end to the sectarian killings, and it is these killings that are beginning to change the sectarian map in Baghdad as the insurgents and militias move in to communities and try and force out the opposing community. People who have are being forced to move their areas, changing the face of Baghdad. Wolf?

BLITZER: Nic Robertson in Baghdad for us. Thank you. Jack Cafferty is off today. He'll be back next week.

Coming up tonight, Donald Rumsfeld's long good-bye -- hear what he has to say about the war in Iraq and his worst day.

Negligent Republicans who did nothing wrong, that's the interesting twist to a Capitol Hill sex scandal. It includes some shocking never seen before instant messages that range from racy to raunchy. Also, Jimmy Carter and some tough criticism from a former colleague. Find out why the former president of the United States' credibility is now being questioned.

Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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