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When cutting staff at the Pentagon, don't eliminate the thin layer that assures civilian control.

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
Layers
Staff
Thin
Assures
Cutting
Civilian
Control
Pentagon
Layer
Civilians
Eliminate

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Make decisions about the President's personal security. He can overrule you, but don't ask him to be the one to counsel caution.
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Look for what's missing. Many advisors can tell a President how to improve what's proposed or what's gone amiss. Few are able to see what isn't there.
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Inspectors do not have the duty or the ability to uncover terrible weapons hidden in a vast country. The responsibility of inspectors is simply to confirm evidence of voluntary and total disarmament. Saddam Hussein has the responsibility to provide that evidence, as directed, and in full
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We don't seek empires.We're not imperialistic.
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Plan backwards as well as forward. Set objectives and trace back to see how to achieve them. You may find that no path can get you there. Plan forward to see where your steps will take you, which may not be clear or intuitive.
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Don't speak ill of your predecessors or successors. You didn't walk in their shoes.
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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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If you try to please everybody, somebody's not going to like it.
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Don't do or say things you would not like to see on the front page of The Washington Post.
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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.
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Let your family, staff, and friends know that you're still the same person, despite all the publicity and notoriety that accompanies your position.
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Have a deputy and develop a successor. Don't be consumed by the job or you'll risk losing your balance. Keep your mooring lines to the outside world - family, friends, neighbors, people out of government, and people who may not agree with you.
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Don't be a bottleneck. If a matter is not a decision for the President or you, delegate it. Force responsibility down and out. Find problem areas, add structure and delegate. The pressure is to do the reverse. Resist it.
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If you develop rules, never have more than ten.
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Secretary Powell and I agree on every single issue that has ever been before this administration except for those instances where Colin's still learning.
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Every country should be tired of going to war. War is a terrible thing. If I had been in Congress, as much as I would be inclined naturally to be supportive of a president, any president, I would have voted no, had the issue come to a vote.
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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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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.
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You can have a broad popular democracy movement and have it end being taken over by the most vicious people and the result is you don't end up with free political systems or free economic systems, you end up with a handful of radicals controlling the country.
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There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist.
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