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I didn't advocate invasion...I wasn't asked.

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
Advocate
Invasion
Asked
Wasn
Didn

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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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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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Control your time. If you're working off your in-box, you're working off the priorities of others. Be sure the staff is working on what you move to them from the President, or the President will be reacting, not leading.
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And there is, I am certain, among the Iraqi people a respect for the care and the precision that went into the bombing campaign.
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We have an orientation that tends to make us think that everything is our responsibility and that we should be doing this. It is the Iraqis' country, 28 million of them. They are perfectly capable of running that country.
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In unanimity there may well be either cowardice or uncritical thinking.
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The Cold War was a war, and we won it.
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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.
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If you foul up, tell the President and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes.
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Now, settle down, settle down. Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning and I'm gathering my thoughts here.
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Being Vice President is difficult. Don't make it tougher.
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General Boykin has requested that an inspector general review this matter. And I have indicated that if that's his request, I think it's appropriate.
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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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Pieces of intelligence, scraps of intelligence...you run down leads and you run down leads, and you hope that sometimes it works.
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In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.
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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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A large number of people to begin crawling through those tunnels and caves looking for the bad folks.
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Most of the 50 or so invitations you receive each week come from people inviting the President's Chief of Staff, not you. If you doubt that, ask your predecessor how many he received last week.
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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.
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