Grassley says short-term help for Liberia is warranted

A 32-member U.S. military team landed in Liberia on Monday to explore options that might include the deployment of many hundreds of American troops to restore order. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says “we have a special obligation to Liberia as opposed to a lot of other African countries because they’re a country that we helped create in 1822.”From a humanitarian standpoint, Grassley says the long-running Liberian civil war has caused “quite a crisis for the average person” in that west African nation. Grassley supports sending in troops to stabilize the country but he expresses one concern — that the mission be brief.Grassley says troops are needed urgently elsewhere in Afghanistan, Iraq and to maintain national security as part of the war on terrorism.