HARTFORD, Oct. 23 — The widely watched campaign for United States Senate here has largely been a war of words over the war in Iraq — a war, primarily, over the words of the incumbent, Joseph I. Lieberman.

Ned Lamont, who upset Mr. Lieberman in the Democratic primary in August only to face him again as an independent in the Nov. 7 election, frequently criticizes the senator, charging that he supports the Bush administration's "stay the course' policy. Mr. Lieberman insists that Mr. Lamont has distorted his record and taken his comments out of context.

A close examination of hundreds of Mr. Lieberman's statements on Iraq over the past five years shows that while he repeatedly praised President Bush, he was far more likely to criticize him. But those critiques dropped off markedly in the last two years, even as the insurgency in Iraq gained strength.

At the same time, Mr. Lieberman made negative comments about fellow Democrats three times as often as he made positive comments, particularly after his failed campaign for his party's presidential nomination in 2004.

Near the end of this year's primary, Mr. Lieberman ramped up his criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the war, and soon after his loss, called for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to resign. More recently he has called for "bringing the troops home." Yet he continues to strongly oppose setting a timetable for withdrawal, echoing the position of the White House.

As the battle of interpretation continues, The New York Times sorted 362 of Mr. Lieberman's war-related comments since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks into content-related categories, and found that he has alternated his arguments about the parties and the war's prosecution, shifting tone at critical points as political circumstances have evolved.

In nearly a third of the statements, the senator spoke of Saddam Hussein as a danger to the United States or to the world, and he was only slightly less likely to mention links to weapons of mass destruction. But he rarely talked about troop preparedness or connected the war to the broader conflict in the Middle East or to Iran.

While the sample could not be completely comprehensive, it was exhaustive, covering more than 100 television and radio interviews; scores of newspaper and op-ed articles; speeches and debates from the Senate floor, the current campaign and Mr. Lieberman's presidential bid; and news releases.

Never, in the statements reviewed, did Mr. Lieberman utter the words "stay the course." He has his own catch phrases, however, describing Iraq as a "just war" or "just cause" more than a dozen times; often saying Mr. Hussein is "not just a thorn in our side" but "a threat to our lives;" and repeatedly calling for a Marshall Plan for the Muslim world.

"We are in a world war," he said, in a typical formulation, on a CNN program in July 31, 2005. "We're in a world war that Islamist terrorists declared against the rest of the world. And the United States has been a target and surely will be again."

Perhaps the most contentious question in the current campaign is how Mr. Lieberman's Iraq statements align with the president's policies, and that is one of many themes that have changed over time, according to the Times analysis.

Immediately after the Hussein regime was toppled in 2003, Mr. Lieberman, while running for president, said the White House lacked a post-Hussein plan, criticized Mr. Bush for acting unilaterally, and said the president threatened to give a "bad name" to a "just war" by failing to make the case for why it was necessary.

Such criticisms all but disappeared after the 2004 presidential election, and Mr. Lieberman later defended the war, saying that it was necessary to stay in Iraq because the world was safer without Mr. Hussein in power. After President Bush's 2005 State of the Union address, Mr. Lieberman called the president's comments about the elections in Iraq "stirring."

"The president spoke about the importance of completing our mission in Iraq, and I couldn't agree more," Mr. Lieberman said in a statement. "Americans disagree about whether we should have gone to war or not, but we can all agree now that we must win and we must support our troops. We're on the road to peace and democracy in Iraq, and we'll reach our goal, if we stick to it."

Speaking to CNN the next morning, Mr. Lieberman rejected a timetable for troop withdrawal, and praised the pace of training the Iraqi military. "You stay until the mission is completed," he said. "And the good news is we're making real progress in moving toward that date."

One pivotal moment that helped galvanize Mr. Lamont came when Mr. Lieberman said, in December 2005, that with three years left in Mr. Bush's term, "we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril."

And in recent weeks, as the Bush administration has struggled to present viable options to a public more skeptical about the war, Mr. Lieberman has used similar language to reassure Connecticut voters while also saying that Iraq is a central front in the war on terror and that victory is necessary and possible.

As Mr. Lamont mounted his challenge here this spring, based largely on opposition to the war, Mr. Lieberman grew quieter on the subject of Iraq, usually limiting his remarks except to say he stayed true to his convictions. It was only in the final days before the Aug. 8 primary that Mr. Lieberman spoke out more forcefully, usually referring to critiques of the war that he made in 2003 and 2004 to rebut Mr. Lamont's accusations.

"What I don't think is right, as I have said over and over again, are many of the Bush administration's decisions regarding the execution of the war," Mr. Lieberman said in a speech the weekend before the primary. "The fact is, I have openly and clearly disagreed with and criticized the president."

As for fellow Democrats, Mr. Lieberman had negative things to say about them more than three dozen times in the past five years, with his harshest words coming after he lost the Democratic primary.

As early as July 28, 2003, Mr. Lieberman said, "Some in my party are sending out a message that they don't know a just war when they see it, and, more broadly, are not prepared to use our military strength to protect our security and the cause of freedom."

By November 2005, Mr. Lieberman said, he was "disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead."

Beyond partisan politics, the review of Mr. Lieberman's comments show the evolution of his justification for the war.

Mr. Lieberman repeatedly cited a connection between Mr. Hussein and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks immediately after they occurred, echoing a refrain from the Bush administration with at least 10 mentions of such links in 2001 and 2002. But Mr. Lieberman stopped making such references long before the administration: He appears to have last connected the Iraqi dictator with the suicide flights in an October 2002 op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal, a year before Vice President Cheney reiterated them on NBC's "Meet the Press" in 2003.

His rationale for authorizing the war has also changed over the years. While Mr. Lieberman initially invoked weapons of mass destruction, he was much more likely, later on, to speak of the general danger Mr. Hussein posed to the United States and the world.

"Did Saddam have a direct hand in the attacks on America that began on Sept. 11?" he asked rhetorically in October 2001, according to a Wall Street Journal article. "The evidence at our disposal is circumstantial but suggestive. We do know that he has not just the motive and malevolence, but the means. And we also know that Iraqi intelligence officials have met at critical times with members of the Al Qaeda network."

In March 2002 — about a year before the United States invaded Iraq — Mr. Lieberman cited connections between Iraqi intelligence and Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, on the Fox News Network. Again, he said the evidence was circumstantial, but added, "I don't need it to tell me that Saddam is a danger to us, a ticking time bomb, and we ought to take him out of power."

In recent weeks, Mr. Lieberman has tried to hammer Mr. Lamont for supporting a deadline for troop withdrawal, which the senator called a "plan for defeat."

Like the president, he has been somewhat dismissive of the National Intelligence Estimate made public last month that said the war in Iraq had emboldened terrorists, saying that it does not change his views on the war. After the report was released, Mr. Lieberman delivered a campaign speech intended to distance himself from the White House, saying that there should be a change in the tactics used in the war. Then, he said that the United States should "get tough" with the government in Iraq, and called for more American troops to be embedded with the Iraqi military and police.

Also, Mr. Lieberman has said he wants to end the war in Iraq, but he has said little in recent weeks about the difficulties there or what the signs to end it would be.

In September, Mr. Lieberman — along with Senators John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton — met with President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, and said that he had offered an "encouraging, progressive" report.

"This is a question of allies working together," Mr. Lieberman said after the meeting at the Capitol. "With a friend, you don't essentially put a gun to their head."

Jennifer Medina reported from Connecticut and Anne E. Kornblut from Washington. Aron Pilhofer contributed reporting, and Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

Correction: Oct. 25, 2006

An article yesterday about shifts in statements on the Iraq war by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat, referred incorrectly to his use of the phrase "stay the course," a favorite of the Bush administration until recently. Mr. Lieberman has indeed used the phrase; in the hundreds of statements reviewed, it appears at least half a dozen times. A corrective article appears today.

Commentary: