Quotes by Donald Rumsfeld

I don't do quagmires.

There is no question but that when one is engaged militarily that there are going to be unintended loss of life.

Keep your sense of humor. As General Joe Stillwell said, The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind.

The success of an organization will depend on the people you surround yourself with.

Learn to say 'I don't know.' If used when appropriate, it will be often.

Don't accept the post or stay unless you have an understanding with the President that you're free to tell him what you think with the bark off and you have the courage to do it.

Certainty without power can be interesting, even amusing. Certainty with power can be dangerous.

The Cold War was a war, and we won it.

To gain support in U.S. Congress and from other nations requires clarity, an acceptable mission and an explicit outcome.

Find ways to decentralize. Move decision making authority down and out. Encourage a more entrepreneurial approach.

I tend over the years to have developed a certain hesitancy about believing that headlines tell the whole story.

Those who made the decisions with imperfect knowledge will be judged in hindsight by those with considerably more information at their disposal and time for reflection.

Don't say 'the White House wants.' Buildings can't want.

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.

I'm glad you asked. It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil.

Listening to both sides does not necessarily bring about a correct judgment.

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.

And there is, I am certain, among the Iraqi people a respect for the care and the precision that went into the bombing campaign.

When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government and the international community.

If there are people who yearn for the days when Saddam Hussein was in power, then I am not among them.

It is hard to put a price on some things. What is the value of having prevented nuclear weapons from getting into the hands of a dictator like Saddam Hussein -- or of Gadhafi?

The problem is the people who tend to be the best organized are the most radical and the most vicious.

Let your family, staff, and friends know that you're still the same person, despite all the publicity and notoriety that accompanies your position.

I think it's very useful for you folks (reporters) to try your damndest to be precise. And don't repeat things that are inaccurate if you can possibly avoid it. And when you see things that are inaccurate, knock them down -- because there's a bucket of it floating around.

In unanimity there may well be either cowardice or uncritical thinking.

Strive to make proposed solutions as self-executing as possible. As the degree of discretion increases, so too does bureaucracy, delay, and expense.

There will be good moments, and there will be less good moments.

After he saw what happened to Saddam Hussein, he (Gadhafi) did not want to be Saddam Hussein. He gave up his nuclear program.

It is the photographs that gives one the vivid realization of what actually took place. (On photographs from Abu Ghraib prison.).

Move decisions out to the Cabinet and agencies. Strengthen them by moving responsibility, authority, and accountability their direction.

When I served as US Ambassador to NATO in the 1970s, the center of gravity in Europe was France and Germany.

The worst thing you can do is allow a coalition to determine what your mission is.

One thing appears reasonably certain, and that's that those who make allegations of a culture of deception, of intimidation or cover-up need to be extremely careful about such accusations.

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.

After the German abstention at the UN, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle commented that Germany doesn't always have to stand on the side of its traditional allies. Berlin can look for new partners all over the world.

If you are working from your inbox, you are working on other people's priorities.

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.

Look at me! I'm sweet and lovable!

You might be a cunning linguist, but I am a master debater.

Never assume the other fellow will not do something you wouldn't do.

Don't 'over-control' like a novice pilot. Stay loose enough from the flow that you can observe it, modify, and improve it.

The most underestimated risk for a politician is overexposure.

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.

From where you sit, the White House may look as untidy as the inside of a stomach. As is said of the legislative process, sausage-making and policy-making shouldn't be seen close-up. Don't let that panic you. Things may be going better than they look from the inside.

Sausage making and policy-making shouldn't be seen close-up.

Presidential leadership needn't always cost money. Look for low- and no-cost options. They can be surprisingly effective.

The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost.

I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started.

I suppose the implication of that is the president and the vice president and myself and Colin Powell just fell off a turnip truck to take these jobs.

The implication that there was something wrong with the war plan is amusing.

There's no debate in the world as to whether people have weapons of mass destruction... We all know that. A trained ape knows that.

Any country on the face of the Earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

Our goal is to defend the American people, and to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and to liberate the Iraqi people.

Within a week, or a month, Saddam could give his WMD to al-Qaeda.

When starting at the bottom, be willing to learn from those at the top.

When someone with a rural accent says, I don't know much about politics, zip up your pockets.

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.

They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer.

We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country.

Many people around the President have sizeable egos before entering government, some with good reason. Their new positions will do little to moderate their egos.

Now, settle down, settle down. Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning and I'm gathering my thoughts here.

Walk around. If you are invisible, the mystique of the President's office may perpetuate inaccurate impressions about you or the President, to his detriment. After all, you may not be as bad as they're saying.

Is it likely that an aircraft carrier or a cruise missile is going to find a person?

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.

Most US presidents since World War II have led military actions without a declaration of war by Congress, though most, if not all, have properly consulted and sought support from Congress. That is the wise thing to do.

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.

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.

Every president when he is elected has to live with the pluses and minuses his predecessor leaves, which includes benefits as well as burdens.

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.

No terror state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Pieces of intelligence, scraps of intelligence...you run down leads and you run down leads, and you hope that sometimes it works.

The Federal Government should be the last resort, not the first. Ask if a potential program is truly a federal responsibility or whether it can better be handled privately, by voluntary organizations, or by local or state governments.

NATO member states vary dramatically in their capability and in their political steadfastness.

Know that the immediate staff and others in the Administration will assume that your manner, tone and tempo reflect the President's.

Watch the growth of middle level management. Don't automatically fill vacant jobs. Leave some positions unfilled for 6-8 months to see what happens. You will find you won't need to fill some of them.

Being Vice President is difficult. Don't make it tougher.

If a prospective Presidential approach can't be explained clearly enough to be understood well, it probably hasn't been thought through well enough. If not well understood by the American people, it probably won't 'sail' anyway. Send it back for further thought.

There are a lot of things that are said by people in the military, or civilian life, or in the Congress, or in the Executive Branch, that are their views. And that's the way we live. We're a free people. And that's the wonderful thing about our country.

At 78 years old, I am not surprised at much anymore. Germany has taken divergent positions before, so has France, so has England, so has the US.

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.

One of your tasks is to separate the 'personal' from the 'substantive.' The two can become confused, especially if someone rubs the President wrong.

When you're skiing, if you're not falling you're not trying.

If it were a fact, it wouldn't be called intelligence.

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.

You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe.

There are people who in large measure have information that we need ... so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country.

When there happens to be a weapon of mass destruction suspect site in an area that we occupy and if people have time, they'll look at it.

I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons.

Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.

I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work.

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.

Five days or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last longer.

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.