Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeldis an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the second oldestperson to have served as Secretary of Defense. Additionally, Rumsfeld was a three-term U.S. Congressman from Illinois, Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Counsellor to the President, the United States Permanent...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth9 July 1932
CityEvanston, IL
CountryUnited States of America
Amidst all the clutter, beyond all the obstacles, aside from all the static, are the goals set. Put your head down, do the best job possible, let the flak pass, and work towards those goals.
Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.
A terrorist can attack at any time at any place using a range of techniques. It is physically impossible to defend at every time in every location against every conceivable technique of terrorism. Therefore, if your goal is to stop it, you cannot stop it by defense. You can only stop it by taking the battle to the terrorists, where they are and going after them.
Our goal is to get the tribes in the south to oppose the Taliban, ... They have been relatively quiet thus far. We need them to oppose the Taliban. Therefore, we need them to recognize that they're going to have a voice in the post-Taliban government.
Our goal is to get large numbers of international forces from lots of countries, including those two,
Absent a dictator, absent the Saddam Hussein regime, our goal would be first to have a single country, not have a country broken up into pieces, it would be to see that it would be a country without weapons of mass destruction, a country that did not try to impose its will upon its neighbors and it was a country that was respectful of the rights of minorities and the ethnic groups that exist in the country,
The goal is to have the pressure be so great that Saddam Hussein cooperates, ... Short of that -- an unwillingness to cooperate -- the goal is to have the capabilities of the coalition so clear and so obvious that there is an enormous disincentive for the Iraqi military to fight against the coalition.
We have to expect that global terrorist networks that we know are trying to get these weapons will in fact be successful at some time in the future,
We will stay as long as necessary to help you do that, and not a day longer.... Let me be clear: Iraq belongs to you,
What's happened is amazing for the speed with which it was executed, but also for all the things that did not happen, all the bad things that could have happened, because of that speed,
I've thought about it. And, over the weekend, I thought to myself, you know, that gives them a greater legitimacy than they seem to merit,
It would be a very good thing if he were out of business,
These proposals have nothing to do with that, ... These proposals have to do with organizational arrangements within the Department of Defense that put a focus on the important issues relating to space which have been spread throughout the department in a way that has made it difficult to get the right kind of focus and the right kind of emphasis.
These events occurred on my watch, ... As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them and I take full responsibility.