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If you foul up, tell the President and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes.

Donald Rumsfeld

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Donald Rumsfeld
Age: 88 †
Born: 1932
Born: July 9
Died: 2021
Died: June 29
Author
Businessperson
Diplomat
Former U.S. Secretary Of Defense
Military Officer
Politician
Chicago
Illinois
Donald Henry Rumsfeld
Foul
Delay
Correct
Mistakes
Fast
Mistake
President
Tell
Compounds

More quotes by Donald Rumsfeld

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... something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question.
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Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.
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Our task, your task... is to try to connect the dots before something happens. People say, 'Well, where's the smoking gun?' Well, we don't want to see a smoking gun from a weapon of mass destruction.
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Success tends to go not to the person who is error-free, because he also tends to be risk-averse. Rather it goes to the person who recognizes that life is pretty much a percentage business. It isn't making mistakes that's critical it's correcting them and getting on with the principal task.
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Don't automatically obey Presidential directives if you disagree or if you suspect he hasn't considered key aspects of the issue.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.
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Do you have any regrets? Of course I do.
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Any country on the face of the Earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
Donald Rumsfeld
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You might be a cunning linguist, but I am a master debater.
Donald Rumsfeld
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If you develop rules, never have more than ten.
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Treat each federal dollar as if it was hard earned it was - by a taxpayer.
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No terror 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.
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Imagine, a September 11 with weapons of mass destruction. It's not 3,000. It's tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children.
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We'll have to deal with the networks. One of the ways to do that is to drain the swamp they live in. And that means dealing not only with the terrorists, but those who harbor terrorists. This will take a long, sustained effort. It will require the support of the American people as well as our friends and allies around the world.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.
Donald Rumsfeld
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I think we ought to have a new rule: You can ask two questions, and then we can pick the one we want to answer.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Keep your sense of humor. As General Joe Stillwell said, 'The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind'.
Donald Rumsfeld
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When I served as US Ambassador to NATO in the 1970s, the center of gravity in Europe was France and Germany.
Donald Rumsfeld
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We do know that the Iraqi regime has chemical and biological weapons. His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons - including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas. His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons—including anthrax and botulism toxin, and possibly smallpox.
Donald Rumsfeld
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There are things that we know, and there are things that we don't know. Then there are the things that we don't even know that we don't know. Those are the things that are the hardest.
Donald Rumsfeld