Barbour breaks with rivals on Afghanistan, defense spending

Here's a major moment in the nascent Republican presidential primary: Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour tonight became the first among the leading Republican candidates to suggest that the United States reduce its presence in Afghanistan and its spending on defense.

Barbour echoed the concerns of critics of the Afghan war effort when asked by reporters in Iowa about American involvement in the conflict:

He also said that the U.S. should consider reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan. "I think we need to look at that," he said when asked if the U.S. should scale back its presence. But he said his reasoning isn't financial. "What is our mission?" Barbour said. "How many Al Qaeda are in Afghanistan. ... Is that a 100,000-man Army mission?" "I don't think our mission should be to think we're going to make Afghanistan an Ireland or an Italy" or a Western-style democracy, he said.

Barbour's leading Republican rivals have positioned themselves to President Obama's hawkish right on a range of foreign policy issues. They've also resisted calls from some associated with the Tea Party movement for deep cuts to federal spending that would include defense cuts. In fact, two of the candidates -- Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich -- have in the past backed the Heritage Foundation's "4 percent for Freedom" initiative, which would actually raise baseline defense spending.

"Anybody who says you can't save money at the Pentagon has never been to the Pentagon," Barbour said. "We can save money on defense and if we Republicans don't propose saving money on defense, we'll have no credibility on anything else."