Ron Paul: Osama raid should have been different

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) refused on Sunday to back down from comments last week that the United States should have informed the Pakistani government that American officials knew where Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was hiding.

"Why are we having trouble with the [Pakistani] government, why are we stirring up a civil war in Pakistan? It's because we've been bombing it," Paul said on "Fox News Sunday."

The libertarian Paul, who's running again for the Republican presidential nomination, said his opposition to the U.S. mission to kill bin Laden demonstrates the principles of his non-interventionist foreign policy.

"I'm saying that when you bomb a country, you violate their national security and sovereignty," Paul told host Chris Wallace. "We're doing that [in Pakistan]. At the same time, we're giving them billions of dollars. And you wonder why the [Pakistani] government gets in trouble with the people."

The Obama administration should have relied on the Pakistani government to arrest bin Laden and turn him over to U.S. authorities, Paul said.