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Work continuously to trim the White House staff from your first day to your last. All the pressures are to the contrary.

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
House
Pressures
Firsts
Continuously
First
Staff
Work
Contrary
Pressure
Lasts
Last
White
Trim

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The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. It's to change the behavior of the people that are being terrorized.
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If you can't solve a problem, make it bigger.
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First rule of politics: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.
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It is very difficult to spend federal (the taxpayers') dollars so that the intended result is achieved.
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Members of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate are not there by accident. Each managed to get there for some reason. Learn what it was and you will know something important about them, about our country and about the American people.
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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'.
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Oh my goodness gracious, what you can buy off the Internet in terms of overhead photography. A trained ape can know an awful lot of what is going on in this world, just by punching on his mouse, for a relatively modest cost.
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Oh, Lord. I didn't mean to say anything quotable.
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If you try to please everybody, somebody's not going to like it.
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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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The natural state of man is to want to be free. To have opportunities. To have choices.
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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.
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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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Then there are three or four countries that have said they won't do anything. I believe Libya, Cuba and Germany are ones that have indicated they won't help in any respect.
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A large number of people to begin crawling through those tunnels and caves looking for the bad folks.
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Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.
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I didn't advocate invasion...I wasn't asked.
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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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Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small.
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Is it likely that an aircraft carrier or a cruise missile is going to find a person?
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