Barbour questions involvement in Afghanistan, Libya

CEDAR RAPIDS – America is the leader of the free world “and we need to lead,” Haley Barbour said March 25, but the potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate called for limiting U.S. involvement to those times and places consistent with the “national mission.”

Barbour spent much of Friday introducing himself in the Corridor, speaking to the Linn County GOP Eagles and at the Johnson County Republican spaghetti supper in Tiffin before heading to Des Moines to participate in U.S. Rep. Steve King's Conservative Principles Conference March 26.

The Mississippi governor called for reassessing U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. The mission, he thought, was to “to stamp out, obliterate, kill if necessary, the terrorists who were using Afghanistan as their headquarters.”

He's willing to spend whatever it takes.

“We have to win,” he said at the Cedar Rapids Country Club.

However, he continued, “It's time for us to step back and say to win the war on terrorism, do we need to have 100,000 soldiers over there and be spending $2 billion a week?”

Barbour, who spent most of his speech criticizing President Obama's domestic policies for being too costly and stifling economic growth, answered queries about foreign policy and the use of military force by questioning the commander-in-chief's decision to get involved in Libya.

“We should not commit our people even to what seems to be the least dangerous kind of mission if there is no leadership, if there is no agreement on what we are trying to accomplish,” Barbour said. “We always need to go back and say, ‘Are we consistent with our mission?”

Barbour, 63, has been involved in politics since dropping out of college in 1968 to work on a presidential campaign, but said he's had a great life and hasn't lived it wanting to president.

“I married my trophy wife the first time,” he said, referring to his wife of 40 years, Marsha.

In fact, he said that if there was a Bill Clinton-like moderate Democrat in the White House he probably wouldn't be thinking about running for the GOP nomination.

“But I'm worried about our country,” the father of two and grandfather of four said. “People are afraid their children and grandchildren won't inherit the same country we did.”

He never heard Americans express that fear during the Vietnam War or Jimmy Carter's malaise, Barbour said, “But I have heard that every day for the past couple of years.

“We don't want to be the first generation that did not leave this country better off,” he said. “That's what this election about.”

His answer is “lower taxes, less spending, rational regulation, peace through strength,” Barbour said. “Those are the things that make us great.”