July 3 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, said the Bush administration must adjust its policies in Iraq and set standards to determine progress.

``People need to have some kind of measurement standard in Iraq,'' Hagel said on the NBC's ``Meet the Press.'' ``So that we don't drift and just every now and then get a new speech saying, `Well, we're doing fine and just stay the course.' Stay the course is not a policy.''

The U.S. has about 135,000 troops in Iraq and 18,000 in Afghanistan. U.S. casualties have risen to 1,740 in Iraq and 149 in Afghanistan as of July 1. Many Democrats and some Republicans, including Arizona Senator John McCain, also have criticized the administration's handling of military operations in Iraq.

Bush, in a nationally televised June 28 speech to troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, urged ``perseverance'' in support of the war effort.

Hagel said he will continue to question the administration's policies in Iraq.

``I will do everything I can to ensure that we have a policy worthy of these brave young men and women who are sacrificing their lives and doing the things that they do for this country,'' Hagel said. ``I don't think that policy is there today.''

Hagel today defended the comments he made to US News and World Report in an interview published June 19 in which he said the administration has become ``disconnected from reality'' over Iraq. He cited comments by Vice President Dick Cheney that the insurgency is in its ``last throes.'' U.S. troops are ``losing'' in Iraq, Hagel said in the interview.

Hagel said today that he made the comments based on the rising casualty rate and other measurable factors.

Exit Strategy

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California, said on the program that the U.S. is making progress in Iraq.

``I think the war is going, it's working along, and I think that the progress is steady and the handoff, the exit strategy, is a stand-up of the Iraqi military,'' Hunter said.

The Egyptian ambassador to Iraq, Ihab al-Sherif, was kidnapped in Baghdad, the Associated Press reported today, citing unidentified Egyptian diplomats.

Al-Sherif, Egypt's first ambassador to Iraq since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein's government, was seized late yesterday, two diplomats in Cairo and Baghdad told the agency.

To contact the reporter on this story: Catherine Larkin in Washington at clarkin4@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 3, 2005 11:39 EDT