Quote

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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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
Answer
Ought
Answers
Asks
Two
Pick
Think
Picks
Thinking
Rule
Questions

More quotes by Donald Rumsfeld

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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.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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
Donald Rumsfeld
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Do you have any regrets? Of course I do.
Donald Rumsfeld
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One of your tasks is to separate the 'personal' from the 'substantive.' The two can become confused, especially if someone rubs the President wrong.
Donald Rumsfeld
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A terrorist can attack any time, any place using any technique and you can't defend everywhere against every technique at every moment.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Preserve the President's options. He may need them.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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.
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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If you can't solve a problem, make it bigger.
Donald Rumsfeld
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I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think and I assume it's what I said.
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
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When business accepts help from the government, it can be like going to bed with a hippopotamus. It's nice and warm for the moment, but then your bedmate rolls over and crushes you.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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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Treat each federal dollar as if it was hard earned it was - by a taxpayer.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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.
Donald Rumsfeld
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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.
Donald Rumsfeld
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Don't do or say things you would not like to see on the front page of The Washington Post.
Donald Rumsfeld