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donald rumsfeld Quotes

Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

Birth Date: 1932-07-09 (Saturday, July 9th, 1932)

 

Quotes

    • Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.
    • Now what is the message there? The message is that there are known 'knowns.' There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.
    • The absence of evidence is not necessarily the evidence of absence.
    • I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that.
    • And it is not knowable if force will be used, but if it is to be used, it is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
    • It's a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy.
    • From the DOD News Briefing following the fall of Baghdad, April 11, 2003:
    • I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons.
    • You and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase immediate threat. I didn't, the president didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's what's happened.
    • But no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
    • I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty.
    • Look at me! I'm sweet and lovable!
    • [Osama bin Laden is] either alive and well or alive and not too well or not alive.
    • We're so conditioned as a people to think that a military campaign has to be cruise missiles and television images of airplanes dropping bombs, and that's just false. This is a totally different war. We need a new vocabulary. We need to get rid of old think and start thinking about this thing the way it really is.
    • We know where they [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat....I would also add, we saw from the air that there were dozens of trucks that went into that facility after the existence of it became public in the press and they moved things out. They dispersed them and took them away. So there may be nothing left. I don't know that. But it's way too soon to know. The exploitation is just starting.
    • I didn't advocate invasion:I wasn't asked.
    • :it seems to me that it's up to all of us to try to tell the truth, to say what we know, to say what we don't know, and recognize that we're dealing with people that are perfectly willing to, to lie to the world to attempt to further their case and to the extent people lie of, ultimately they are caught lying and they lose their credibility and one would think it wouldn't take very for that to happen dealing with people like this.
    • As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.
    • I shouldn't get into ... this is diplomacy, and I don't do diplomacy.[14][15][16]
    • We do have a saying in America: if you're in a hole, stop digging ..... erm, I'm not sure I should have said that.[17][18][19]
    • What we are seeing is not the war in Iraq. What we're seeing is slices of the war in Iraq.[20][21][22]
    • It recalls to mind the statement by Winston Churchill, something to the effect that: I have benefited greatly from criticism, and at no time have I suffered a lack thereof. [23]
    • It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog. [24]
    • Those who follow orders to commit such crimes will be found and they will be punished. War crimes will be prosecuted. And it will be no excuse to say, 'I was just following orders.' Any official involved in such crimes will forfeit hope of amnesty or leniency with respect to past action.
    • Oh, Lord. I didn't mean to say anything quotable.
    • Let's hear it for the essential daily briefing, however hollow and empty it might be. We'll do it.
    • 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.
    • It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.
    • Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the President and do wonders for your performance.
    • There will be good moments, and there will be less good moments.
    • I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know, and that's a good thing.
    • Pieces of intelligence, scraps of intelligence:you run down leads and you run down leads, and you hope that sometimes it works.
    • And there is, I am certain, among the Iraqi people a respect for the care and the precision that went into the bombing campaign.
    • Stuff happens.
    • I suppose the implication of that is the president and the vice president and myself and Colin Powell just fell off a turnip truck to take these jobs.
    • I stand for eight hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours?
    • Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet.
    • That just couldn't be any more wrong than spreading marmalade on a steaming pile of flapjacks.
    • I didn't know you were Secretary of Defense. Nice to meet you, Mr. Secretary of Defence. Maybe you can tell us: are we spreading our armed forces too thin? Because you'd know - you'd know where all of the Army's 33 brigades are stationed - and their missions, secret and otherwise. And while you were dispatching the U.S. forces and preparing strategies to defeat the enemies of freedom, you thought 'Hey, I really think it would be swell if I spread our forces too thin.' Right? That's what you thought, didn't you?'
    • Here in the Bush Administration, we're all grown-up enough to not let little things like Ivy League rivalries get in the way of work.
    • This war has been marked by so many lies and evasions that it is not right to have the war end with one last lie.
    • Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Saddam Hussein is not iminent, that he is 5-7 years away from having a nuclear weapon. I would not be so certain.
    • You may find people who will contend that patriotism is something to be a little bit embarrassed about or that honor is somewhat outdated as a notion and that concentrating on America's imperfection makes you a realist. Not so. That's the sign of a cynic. Being a cynic is easy. You can just sit back, heckle from the cheap seats, while others serve, storm beaches, build nations, meet their destinies. Idealists write history's stirring chapters; cynics read those chapters and seem not to understand. Choose to be an idealist. There have always been those who contend that what's wrong with the world is America. Don't believe it.
    • We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement -- that's the kindest word I can give you -- of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war. The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously. I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history.
    • donald rumsfeld

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