During the Sunday morning talk show circuit, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, appeared on Face the Nation with a twisted, contradictory message about the Iraq war. In recent years, Sessions has been one of the Bush Administration’s biggest backers, but it would seem now that the public’s dissatisfaction with the war has left even Sessions second-guessing his president. On one side of Sessions’ schizophrenic argument: If we don’t see progress before September, Congress will start bringing the troops home.

“[B]y September, when General [David] Petraeus is to make a report, I think most of the people in Congress believe, unless something extraordinary occurs, that we should be on a move to draw that surge number down,” Sessions said. “I don’t believe we need a soldier in Iraq a single day longer than is necessary to serve our national interests.”

But if that sounded like a deadline, a benchmark or whatever you call a date certain by which something must be done, Sessions countered his own argument: If we retreat, the terrorists will win.

“There’s no doubt if we’re not successful in Iraq, the initiative will move to the al-Qaeda, the radical jihadists that are — will attack around the world,” Sessions said. “So peace will not occur just by drawing our troops home. It will really embolden the enemy. So the best solution is to get this Iraqi government up, get them to preserve their own integrity as a nation, and to defend themselves.”

As always, Sessions clung to Gen. Petraeus like a tattered security blanket. He cited Petraeus’ credentials as a “brilliant leader,” a Princeton PhD who has “written the book on how to defeat a counterinsurgency.”

“I believe we need to listen to his advice as we go into the fall,” Sessions said.

What’s odd here is that the Pentagon announced as recently as this month that it wants to continue the surge into 2008, extending the tours of some 35,000 service members another three months to preserve the current troop levels in Iraq, and in public statements Petraeus has approved of the extension.

“I have to say that it is a heck of a lot better to announce it way in advance than it is to announce it when the welcome banners are already hung at the arrival airfield at home station and a hundred of the advance party for the return are already there,” Petraeus said three weeks ago.

So is Sessions being truthful when he says Congress should listen to Petraeus, or is he delivering a message to the Pentagon that the clock has run out? Or is the Republican boilerplate broken?

Last week, Congressional Republicans won a political victory, preventing Democrats form imposing a timetable on the Iraq War, but if Sessions’ comments mean anything, the win seems to be temporary at best.

Sessions has certainly benefited from supporting the war. In April, Vice President Dick Cheney spoke at a Birmingham fundraiser for the senator and he used the opportunity to blast the weak-kneed Democrats who would put a deadline on the Iraq war.

“Twisted logic is not exactly a new phenomenon in Washington, but lately it’s gone to new heights,” Cheney said then.

Sessions is scheduled to hold another fundraiser next month in Mobile, this time with President Bush as the main attraction.

With the number of American casualties in Iraq still increasing, the value of the surge has been a hard sell for Congressional Republicans. If the violence in Iraq continues and American fatalities there continue to rise, supporting the war will become an even greater liability before the 2008 elections.

Sessions was once thought to be politically invulnerable in conservative Alabama, but in recent months that conventional wisdom has begun to falter and Democrats are considering footing a serious contender against Sessions next year, perhaps Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture Ron Sparks. Looking ahead to that election, Sessions, like most Congressional Republicans, must consider severing ties to the war.

“We also need to ask what is the impact — what context are we looking at in the overall war on terrorism here? I mean, what does Iraq mean?” Sessions asked Sunday.

Too bad he didn’t ask that question four years ago.

— Kyle Whitmire

Read more this Thursday in War on Dumb at Bhamweekly.com

Click here for the Face the Nation transcript, or watch the video here.

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