Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the President and do wonders for your performance.
Donald RumsfeldI 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 RumsfeldIt is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
Donald RumsfeldPresidential leadership needn't always cost money. Look for low- and no-cost options. They can be surprisingly effective.
Donald RumsfeldI don't think we'll discover anything, myself. I think what will happen is we'll discover people who will tell us where to go find it. It is not like a treasure hunt where you just runaround looking everywhere hoping you find something. I just don't think that's going to happen. The inspectors didn't find anything, and I doubt that we will. What we will do is find the people who will tell us.
Donald RumsfeldThe reality is that terrorists can attack any time at any minute, 24 hours a day, using a variety of techniques, in any place at all. And it's not possible to defend in every place, against every technique, against every conceivable approach. It means that you can't stop every terrorist attack. Innocent men, women and children are going to be killed if terrorists are determined to do it.
Donald RumsfeldWe know where they are [Iraq's weapons of mass destruction]. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Donald RumsfeldIf I look at the really important questions in [Middle East] region, I see Iran, where there is a strong desire for a freer society and where people are repressed by a small group of ayatollahs. I see Syria, where we can see a similar desire of the people to be free. These two countries fund Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations and are hurting our efforts in Afghanistan and have been extremely harmful in Iraq. Then I also see large, important countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Donald RumsfeldThe coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit. We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light - through the prism of our experience on 9/11.
Donald RumsfeldSee that the President, the Cabinet and staff are informed. If cut out of the information flow, their decisions may be poor, not made, or not confidently or persuasively implemented.
Donald RumsfeldWhat is needed [to combat terrorism], in my view, is resolve, not retreat; courage, not concession. Rather than thinking in terms of an exit strategy, focus on a strategy for success.
Donald RumsfeldIn 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.
Donald RumsfeldHave 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.
Donald RumsfeldI think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.
Donald RumsfeldThere'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 RumsfeldYou will launch many projects, but have time to finish only a few. So think, plan, develop, launch and tap good people to be responsible. Give them authority and hold them accountable. Trying to do too much yourself creates a bottleneck.
Donald RumsfeldControl your own time. Don't let it be done for you. If you are working off the in-box that is fed you, you are probably working on the priority of others.
Donald RumsfeldWhen I served as US Ambassador to NATO in the 1970s, the center of gravity in Europe was France and Germany.
Donald RumsfeldKeep your sense of humor. As General Joe Stillwell said, 'The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind'.
Donald RumsfeldI can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won't last any longer than that.
Donald RumsfeldDon'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 RumsfeldIf there are people who yearn for the days when Saddam Hussein was in power, then I am not among them.
Donald RumsfeldYour performance depends on your people. Select the best, train them and back them. When errors occur, give sharper guidance. If errors persist or if the fit feels wrong, help them move on. The country cannot afford amateur hour in the White House.
Donald RumsfeldA large number of people to begin crawling through those tunnels and caves looking for the bad folks.
Donald RumsfeldControl 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.
Donald RumsfeldIt is the photographs that gives one the vivid realization of what actually took place. (On photographs from Abu Ghraib prison.)
Donald RumsfeldMembers 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 RumsfeldReduce the number of lawyers. They are like beavers - they get in the middle of the stream and dam it up.
Donald RumsfeldThe Secretary of Defense is not a super General or Admiral. His task is to exercise civilian control over the Department for the Commander-in-Chief and the country.
Donald RumsfeldIn politics, every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.
Donald RumsfeldThe price of being close to the President is delivering bad news. You fail him if you don't tell him the truth. Others won't do it.
Donald RumsfeldThe reality is that [Barack] Obama has some 15 countries in the current Libya coalition. President Bush put together close to 50 countries for the Afghan coalition, some 40 countries for the Iraqi coalition, more than 90 countries for the Proliferation Security Initiative and over 90 countries in the Global War on Terror.
Donald RumsfeldThe purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. It's to change the behavior of the people that are being terrorized.
Donald RumsfeldYou're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east. And there are a lot of new members. And if you just take the list of all the members of NATO and all of those who have been invited in recently -- what is it? Twenty-six, something like that? -- you're right. Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem.
Donald Rumsfeld