WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Vietnam veteran who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Comittee, Wednesday night blasted President Bush's strategy to "escalate" the war in Iraq.

"This is a dangerously wrong-headed strategy that will drive America deeper into an unwinnable swamp at a great cost. It is wrong to place American troops into the middle of Iraq's civil war," Hagel said in a statement. "The president's strategy will cost more American lives; sink us deeper into the bog of Iraq making it more difficult to get out; cost billions of dollars more; further strain an American military that has already reached its breaking point; further diminish America's standing in the Middle East; and continue to allow the Iraqis to walk away from their responsibilities."

"We cannot escape the reality that there will be no military solution in Iraq," Hagel said. "More American troops, treasure and casualties will not change this reality."