David O. Cooke (left), as Joyce Rumsfeld holds the Bible in a ceremony at the
Eisenhower Executive Office Building.|left Rumsfeld was named Secretary of Defense soon after President George W. Bush took office in 2001 despite Rumsfeld's past rivalry with the previous President Bush. Bush's first choice,
FedEx founder
Fred Smith, was unavailable and Vice President-elect Cheney recommended Rumsfeld for the job. Rumsfeld's second tenure as Secretary of Defense cemented him as the most powerful Pentagon chief since
Robert McNamara and one of the most influential Cabinet members in the Bush administration. His tenure proved to be a pivotal and rocky one that led the United States military into the 21st century. Following the
September 11 attacks, Rumsfeld led the military planning and execution of the 2001
United States invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent
2003 invasion of Iraq. He pushed hard to send as small a force as soon as possible to both conflicts, a concept codified as the
Rumsfeld Doctrine. Throughout his time as defense secretary, Rumsfeld was noted for his candor and quick wit when giving weekly press conferences or speaking with the press.
U.S. News & World Report called him "a straight-talking Midwesterner" who "routinely has the press corps doubled over in fits of laughter".
September 11, 2001, attacks Tom White,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General
Hugh Shelton, and Senators
John Warner (R-VA), and
Carl Levin (D-MI), the Ranking Member and Chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee. On
September 11, 2001,
al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them in coordinated strikes into both towers of the
World Trade Center in
Lower Manhattan, New York City, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field in
Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and its target was likely a prominent building in
Washington, D.C., most probably either the
U.S. Capitol Building or the
White House. Within three hours of the start of the first hijacking and two hours after
American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld raised the defense condition signaling of the United States offensive readiness to
DEFCON 3, the highest it had been since the
Arab–Israeli war in 1973. Rumsfeld addressed the nation in a press conference at the Pentagon, just eight hours after the attacks and stated, "It's an indication that the United States government is functioning in the face of this terrible act against our country. I should add that the briefing here is taking place in the Pentagon. The Pentagon's functioning. It will be in business tomorrow."
Military decisions in the wake of 9/11 speak at the site of the World Trade Center attacks in
Lower Manhattan on November 14, 2001. On the afternoon of September 11, Rumsfeld issued rapid orders to his aides to look for evidence of possible Iraqi involvement in regard to what had just occurred, according to notes taken by senior policy official
Stephen Cambone. "Best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H."meaning Saddam Hussein"at same time. Not only UBL" (
Osama bin Laden), Cambone's notes quoted Rumsfeld as saying. "Need to move swiftlyNear term target needsgo massivesweep it all up. Things related and not." In the first emergency meeting of the
National Security Council on the day of the attacks, Rumsfeld asked, "Why shouldn't we go against Iraq, not just al-Qaeda?" with his deputy
Paul Wolfowitz adding that Iraq was a "brittle, oppressive regime that might break easily—it was doable," and, according to
John Kampfner, "from that moment on, he and Wolfowitz used every available opportunity to press the case." President George W. Bush reacted to Rumsfeld's suggestion, "Wait a minute, I didn't hear a word said about him (Saddam Hussein) being responsible for the attack" and the idea was initially rejected at the behest of Secretary of State
Colin Powell, but, according to Kampfner, "Undeterred Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz held secret meetings about opening up a second front—against Saddam. Powell was excluded." In such meetings they created a policy that would later be dubbed the
Bush Doctrine, centering on "pre-emption" and the war on Iraq, which the
PNAC had advocated in their earlier letters.
Richard A. Clarke, the White House counter-terrorism coordinator at the time, has revealed details of another National Security Council meeting the day after the attacks, during which officials considered the U.S. response. Already, he said, they were certain al-Qa'ida was to blame and there was no hint of Iraqi involvement. "Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq," according to Clarke. Clarke then stated, "We all said, 'No, no, al-Qa'ida is in Afghanistan. Clarke also revealed that Rumsfeld complained in the meeting, "there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq." Rumsfeld even suggested to attack other countries like Libya and Sudan, arguing that if this was to be a truly "global war on terror" then all state sponsors of terrorism should be dealt with. Rumsfeld wrote in
Known and Unknown, "Much has been written about the Bush administration's focus on Iraq after 9/11. Commentators have suggested that it was strange or obsessive for the President and his advisers to have raised questions about whether Saddam Hussein was somehow behind the attack. I have never understood the controversy. I had no idea if Iraq was or was not involved, but it would have been irresponsible for any administration not to have asked the question."
War in Afghanistan Rumsfeld directed the planning for the
War in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. Rumsfeld rejected Franks's plan, saying "I want men on the ground now!" Franks returned the next day with a plan utilizing
U.S. Special Forces. Rumsfeld also stated "the only way to deal with these terrorist threats is to go at them where they exist. You cannot defend at every place at every time against every conceivable, imaginable, even unimaginable terrorist attack. And the only way to deal with it is to take the battle to where they are and to root them out and to starve them out by seeing that those countries and those organizations and those non-governmental organizations and those individuals that are supporting and harboring and facilitating these networks stop doing it and find that there's a penalty for doing it". Rumsfeld announced in November 2001, that he received "authoritative reports" that Al-Qaeda's number three
Mohammed Atef, bin Laden's primary military chief and a planner of the September 11 attacks on America, was killed by a U.S. airstrike. "He was very, very senior," Rumsfeld said. "We obviously have been seeking [him] out." On March 15, 2002, in another press conference at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld commented on the mission of
Operation Anaconda by stating "Operation Anaconda continues in the area south of Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. The fighting is winding down as you know. Coalition forces are for the most part in an exploitation phase, doing the difficult work of searching caves and clearing areas where the battles and fighting has taken place. Our forces are finding weapons, ammunition, some intelligence information. In the top 25 al Qaeda, we know some are dead and we know some may be dead; we know some are captured and there are a larger number that we don't know. And roughly the same proportions with respect to Taliban". On May 1, 2003, Rumsfeld during a visit to Afghanistan meeting with U.S. troops stationed in Kabul told the press "General Franks and I have been looking at the progress that's being made in this country and have concluded that we are at a point where we clearly have moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and stabilization and reconstruction and activities." "I should underline however, that there are still dangers, there are still pockets of resistance in certain parts of the country and General McNeal and General Franks and their, the cooperation they have with the
President Karzai's government and leadership and Marshall Fayheems assistance. We will be continuing as a country to work with the Afghan government and the new Afghan National Army to see that the any areas where there is resistance to this government and to the coalition forces will be dealt with promptly and efficiently." There was also controversy between the Pentagon and the CIA over who had the authority to fire
Hellfire missiles from
Predator drones. Even though the drones were not ready for deployment until 2002, In December 2005, Rumsfeld again visited Kabul and met with the Afghan defense minister,
Rahim Wardak. During the meeting, Rumsfeld expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the
Afghan army and attributed the worsening situation in Afghanistan to ineffective governance. He criticized the longstanding plan to expand the Afghan army to 70,000 troops and requested a reduction in the size of the Afghan army to 52,000 at most, claiming that this was necessary to "suit Afghanistan's limited revenues." Shortly after the trip, Rumsfeld also withdrew 3,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan and canceled the planned deployment of one army brigade headed there. In 2009, three years after Rumsfeld's tenure as Defense secretary ended, the
United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations led an investigation into the
Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, during the early phase of the U.S-led coalition war in Afghanistan. They concluded that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and General Franks had not committed enough troops during the battle to secure the area around Tora Bora. They believed that Al-Qaeda's number one leader
Osama bin Laden had likely been at Tora Bora and his escape prolonged the war in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld and Franks were apparently motivated by fear that a substantial American presence near Tora Bora could incite a rebellion by local
Pashtuns, despite the latter's lack of organizational capability at the time and the fierce dissent voiced by many CIA analysts including
Charles E. Allen (who warned Franks that "the back door [to
Pakistan] was open") and
Gary Berntsen (who called for
army rangers to "kill this baby in the crib"). Instead of rangers or
marines, the U.S. assault on Tora Bora relied on the CIA-backed Afghan militias of
Hazrat Ali and
Zahir Qadeer, supplemented with
B-52 bombardment. The resulting influx of hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters into Pakistan destabilized the country and damaged
Pakistan–United States relations. The follow-up
Operation Anaconda "witnessed failures of planning and execution, the product of the fractured lines of command," as recounted by
Steve Coll. In mid-2002, Rumsfeld announced that "The war is over in Afghanistan," to the disbelief of State Department, CIA, and military officials in the country. As a result, Rumsfeld downplayed the need for an Afghan army of even 70,000 troops, far fewer than the 250,000 envisaged by Karzai.
Iraq War and military representatives from the
International Security Assistance Force, speaks to the press on March 11, 2002. (right), commander of
United States Central Command, listen to a question at a Pentagon press conference on March 5, 2003. Before and during the
Iraq War, Rumsfeld claimed that Iraq had an active
weapons of mass destruction program; in particular during his famous phrase "
there are known knowns" in a press conference at the Pentagon on February 12, 2002, no stockpiles were ever found. (right) awards the
"Star of Romania" decoration to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. After the war in Afghanistan was launched, Rumsfeld participated in a meeting in regard to the review of the Department of Defense's Contingency Plan in the event of a war with Iraq. The plan, as it was then conceived, contemplated troop levels of up to 500,000, which Rumsfeld felt was far too many. Gordon and Trainor wrote: In a press conference at the Pentagon on February 27, 2003, Rumsfeld told reporters after being asked a question that Army Chief of Staff General
Eric Shinseki suggested it would take several hundred thousand troops on the ground to secure Iraq and provide stability. Rumsfeld replied "the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far from the mark. The reality is that we already have a number of countries that have offered to participate with their forces in stabilization activities, in the event force has to be used." Rumsfeld addressed the nation in a press conference at the Pentagon on March 20, 2003, just hours after the launch of the
2003 Invasion of Iraq, where he announced the first strike of the war to liberate Iraq and that "The days of the Saddam Hussein regime are numbered," and "We continue to feel there is no need for a broader conflict if the Iraqi leaders act to save themselves and act to prevent such a conflict." Rumsfeld's role in directing the
Iraq War included a plan that was the
Shock and Awe campaign, which resulted in
a lightning invasion with 145,000 soldiers on the ground that took Baghdad within three weeks. Many government buildings, plus major museums, electrical generation infrastructure, and even oil equipment were looted and vandalized during the transition from the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime to the establishment of the
Coalition Provisional Authority. A violent
insurrection began shortly after the military operation started. On March 30, 2003, in an interview with
George Stephanopoulos on
ABC's
This Week program, Rumsfeld answered a question by Stephanopoulos about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Rumsfeld stated "We know where they are. They're in the area around
Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." On April 9, 2003, at a press conference at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld addressed reporters during the
Fall of Baghdad, and stated "The scenes of free Iraqis celebrating in the streets, riding American tanks, tearing down the statues of Saddam Hussein in the center of Baghdad are breathtaking." After the Iraq invasion, U.S. troops were criticized for not protecting the historical artifacts and treasures located at the
National Museum of Iraq. On April 11, 2003, at a press conference at the Pentagon, when asked at the time why U.S. troops did not actively seek to stop the lawlessness, Rumsfeld replied, "Stuff happens ... and it's untidy and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here." He further commented that, "The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, "My goodness, were there that many vases?" In October 2003, Rumsfeld approved a secret Pentagon "roadmap" on public relations, calling for "boundaries" between information operations abroad and the news media at home. The Roadmap advances a policy according to which as long as the U.S. government does not intentionally target the American public, it does not matter that
psychological operations reach the American public. On December 14, 2003, Rumsfeld in an interview with journalist
Lesley Stahl on
60 Minutes after U.S. forces captured
Saddam Hussein in
Operation Red Dawn, stated, "Here was a man who was photographed hundreds of times shooting off rifles and showing how tough he was, and in fact, he wasn't very tough, he was cowering in a hole in the ground, and had a pistol and didn't use it, and certainly did not put up any fight at all. I think that ... he resulted in the death of an awful lot of Iraqi people, in the last analysis, he seemed not terribly brave." As Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld was deliberate in crafting the public message from the Department of Defense. People will "rally" to the word "sacrifice", Rumsfeld noted after a meeting. "They are looking for leadership. Sacrifice = Victory." In May 2004, Rumsfeld considered whether to redefine the war on terrorism as a fight against "worldwide insurgency". He advised aides "to test what the results could be" if the war on terrorism were renamed. Rumsfeld also ordered specific public Pentagon attacks on and responses to U.S. newspaper columns that reported the negative aspects of the war. During Rumsfeld's tenure, he regularly visited U.S. troops stationed in Iraq. The
Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that though Rumsfeld didn't specify a withdrawal date for troops in Iraq, "He says it would be unrealistic to wait for Iraq to be peaceful before removing U.S. led forces from the country, adding that Iraq had never been peaceful and perfect." On August 2, 2006, at a press conference at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld commented on the
sectarian violence in Iraq where he stated "there's sectarian violence; people are being killed.
Sunnis are killing
Shi'a and Shi'a are killing Sunnis.
Kurds seem not to be involved. It's unfortunate, and they need a reconciliation process." On October 26, 2006, at a press conference at the Pentagon after the failure of
Operation Together Forward in Iraq, Rumsfeld referenced a magazine column recently published by
Time that was entitled 'Would defeat in Iraq be so bad?' and stated "Well, the answer is: Yes, it would be. Those who are fighting against the Iraqi government want to seize power so that they can establish a new sanctuary and a base of operations for terrorists and any idea that U.S. military leaders are rigidly refusing to make adjustments in their approaches is just flat wrong. The military is continuing to adapt and to adjust as required. Yes, there are difficulties and problems to be sure." As a result, Rumsfeld stirred controversy as to whether the forces that did invade Iraq were enough in size. Throughout his tenure, Rumsfeld sought to remind the American people of the 9/11 attacks and threats against Americans, noting at one time in a 2006 memo to "[m]ake the American people realize they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists". In a September 2007 interview with
The Daily Telegraph, General
Mike Jackson, the head of the
British army during the invasion, criticized Rumsfeld's plans for the invasion of Iraq as "intellectually bankrupt", adding that Rumsfeld is "one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq", and that he felt that "the US approach to combating global terrorism is 'inadequate' and too focused on military might rather than
nation building and diplomacy." In December 2004, Rumsfeld was heavily criticized for using a
signing machine instead of personally signing over 1000 letters of condolence to the families of soldiers killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan. He promised to personally sign all letters in the future.
Prisoner abuse and torture concerns File:Rumsfeld-4 hours a day.png|thumb|Comment from Rumsfeld: "I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing [by prisoners] limited to 4 hours?" The Department of Defense's preliminary concerns for holding, housing, and interrogating captured prisoners on the battlefield were raised during the military build-up prior to the Iraq War. Because Saddam Hussein's military forces surrendered when faced with military action, many within the DOD, including Rumsfeld and United States Central Command General Tommy Franks, decided it was in the best interest of all to hand these prisoners over to their respective countries. Additionally, it was determined that maintaining a large holding facility was, at the time, unrealistic. Instead, the use of many facilities such as
Abu Ghraib to house prisoners of interest prior to handing them over, and Rumsfeld defended the Bush administration's decision to detain
enemy combatants. Because of this, critics, including members of the
U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, held Rumsfeld responsible for the ensuing
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. Rumsfeld himself said: "These events occurred on my watch as Secretary of Defense. I am accountable for them." He offered his resignation to President Bush in the wake of the scandal, but it was not accepted. , Iraq, on Christmas Eve 2004. In a memo read by Rumsfeld detailing how
Guantanamo Bay detention camp interrogators induced stress in prisoners by forcing them to remain standing in one position for a maximum of four hours, Rumsfeld scrawled a handwritten note on the memo reading: "I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing [by prisoners] limited to 4 hours? D.R." Various organizations, such as
Human Rights Watch, called for investigations of Rumsfeld regarding his involvement in managing the Iraq War and his support of the Bush administration's policies of "
enhanced interrogation techniques", which are widely regarded as torture. Legal scholars have argued that Rumsfeld "might be held criminally responsible if [he] would be prosecuted by the
ICC". In 2005 the
ACLU and Human Rights First filed a lawsuit against Rumsfeld and other top government officials, "on behalf of eight men who they say were subjected to torture and abuse by U.S. forces under the command of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld". In 2005, a suit was filed against Rumsfeld by several human rights organizations for allegedly violating U.S. and international law that prohibits "torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment". In 2007, U.S. District Judge
Thomas F. Hogan ruled that Rumsfeld could not "be held personally responsible for actions taken in connection with his government job". The ACLU tried to revive the case in 2011 with no success. In 2004, German prosecutor
Wolfgang Kaleck filed a criminal complaint charging Rumsfeld and 11 other U.S. officials as war criminals who either ordered the torture of prisoners or drafted laws that legitimated its use. The charges based on breaches of the UN Convention against Torture and the German Code of Crimes against International Law. Rumsfeld's disclosure of the whistleblower's identity during a Senate hearing, despite assurances to
Joe Darby of his anonymity led to shunning within the community, harassment and death threats against him and his family, resulting in them being taken into protective custody by the U.S. Army. Darby would come to doubt the unintentionality of his public identification, though Rumsfeld sent him a letter stating there had been no malicious intent, the mention was meant as praise, that Rumsfeld was unaware of Darby's anonymity.
Resignation alongside the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General
Peter Pace, 2006 Eight U.S. and other
NATO-member retired generals and admirals called for Rumsfeld to resign in early 2006 in what was called the "Generals Revolt", accusing him of "abysmal" military planning and lack of strategic competence. Commentator
Pat Buchanan reported at the time that
Washington Post columnist
David Ignatius, who traveled often to Iraq and supported the war, said the generals "mirror the views of 75 percent of the officers in the field, and probably more". Rumsfeld rebuffed these criticisms, stating, "out of thousands and thousands of admirals and generals, if every time two or three people disagreed we changed the secretary of defense of the United States, it would be like a merry-go-round." Bush defended Rumsfeld throughout and responded by stating that Rumsfeld is "exactly what is needed". On November 1, 2006, Bush stated he would stand by Rumsfeld as defense secretary for the length of his term as president. Rumsfeld wrote a resignation letter dated November 6, 2006, and, per the stamp on the letter, Bush saw it on
Election Day, November 7, 2006. In the
elections, the House and the Senate shifted to Democratic control. After the elections on November 8, 2006, Bush announced Rumsfeld would resign his position as Secretary of Defense. Many Republicans were unhappy with the delay, believing they would have won more votes if voters had known Rumsfeld was resigning. On December 15, 2006, a farewell ceremony, with an armed forces full honor review and a
19-gun salute, was held at the Pentagon Mall Terrace in honor of the departing Rumsfeld. ==Retirement and later life (2006–2021)==