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Rumsfeld (left) established his position in the Nixon administration and then worked under Ford (right).
Donald Rumsfeld died at the age of 88. He served as Secretary of Defense during the presidencies of Gerald Ford and George W Bush.
He is known for supporting the United States in responding to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but his political career was ultimately destroyed by the escalating conflict in Iraq.
In his decades-long career, Rumsfeld has won the reputation of “Ultimate Washington Insider” and “True Political Survivor” by outsmarting opponents. But to his critics, he is a ruthless hawk-a man who is unscrupulous for power, and a war designer.
One of the most memorable moments for him from the public was at a press conference in 2002. When asked about the lack of evidence linking Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction, he used The terms “known known” and “known unknown” gave roundabout responses, causing public ridicule.
Donald Henry Rumsfeld was born in Chicago on July 9, 1932. His father was a real estate salesman and joined the Navy during World War II. In his childhood, Rumsfeld was an eagle scout, and later he fell in love with wrestling.
He later won a naval scholarship to study political science at Princeton University. Between 1954 and 1957, he followed his father’s footsteps and enlisted in the army, becoming a pilot and flight instructor.
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After transferring to the reserve, he came to Washington, DC, first became an assistant to a member of Congress, and then was elected to the House of Representatives of Illinois in 1962.
After Rumsfeld resigned in 1969, he served as director of Richard Nixon’s Office of Economic Opportunity, and then held other positions in the government, including serving as a US ambassador to NATO from 1973 to 1974. ambassador.
After Nixon resigned due to the Watergate incident, Rumsfeld was first appointed as Gerald Ford’s chief of staff.
In a cabinet reorganization in 1975, he was appointed Minister of Defense. At the age of 43, he became the youngest member of the post.
When Rumsfeld took office, US policy was still dominated by Cold War anxiety. He oversaw the development of the Trident nuclear submarine and the “Peace Defender” MX intercontinental ballistic missile project. He also undermined Henry Kissinger’s strategic arms limitation negotiations (SALT II) with the Soviet Union during this period.
After President Ford lost to Jimmy Carter and stepped down in 1977, Rumsfeld entered the private sector while retaining some federal part-time jobs, including the Middle East where he was President Ronald Reagan. special envoy.
He held senior management positions at the pharmaceutical company GD Searle & Co for nearly 10 years, and served as the CEO and chairman of the electronics manufacturer General Instrument before returning to the pharmaceutical company as the chairman of Gilead Sciences.
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Rumsfeld received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. The picture shows him and Vice President Dick Cheney in 1975.
He has never been far away from politics. In 1998, he was elected as the head of a bipartisan committee responsible for assessing the threat of ballistic missiles to the United States. The intelligence assessment of the Clinton administration played down the security risks of the North American continent after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, triggering sharp public criticism of this intelligence assessment.
These findings came to be known as the Rumsfeld Report, which believed that the United States faced growing threats from open or potentially hostile countries such as North Korea, Iraq, and Iran. The report pointed out that these countries may cause “significant damage” to the United States within five years after deciding to pursue missile capabilities-far less than the 15 years estimated by intelligence. These findings have reignited heated debates about the US missile defense system and defense policy.
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George W. Bush and Rumsfeld prioritized the rebuilding of an army they believed was declining.
Back to cabinet
After a fierce election in 2000, Rumsfeld was nominated as Secretary of Defense of the Bush Administration. He used to be the youngest in his post, but later became the oldest.
Rumsfeld is a veteran who has been welcomed by conservatives in the party. He has served as a foreign policy adviser to the Bush campaign. Bush described his appointment as highlighting his “great judgment” and “strong vision.”
In the president’s cabinet, Rumsfeld found that Secretary of State Colin Powell (Colin Powell) and Vice President Dick Cheney (Dick Cheney) had strong personalities-as early as the 70s, Dick Cheney succeeded him as Ford Chief of staff.
The primary task of the Bush administration is to prepare the Pentagon to deal with new and evolving security threats. After Rumsfeld was appointed, he was responsible for improving and streamlining an army that was seen as resisting change.
According to reports, in the early stages of the government, he frankly reaffirmed the civilian control of the military offensive.
But then, less than nine months after taking office as president, the United States came under unprecedented attack.
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9/11 and the aftermath
On the morning of September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center was attacked, Rumsfeld was holding a breakfast meeting with members of Congress at the Pentagon to win their support for the missile defense system.
Rumsfeld insisted on continuing to publish his daily briefing, and he was still inside when the defense headquarters itself was hit by another hijacked plane.
He later recalled that he felt that the building was shaking and ran towards the crash site, which made it difficult for officials to find him and caused chaos. “I breathed fresh air outside and saw a mess,” he wrote. “This is the first time I have seen black smoke rising from the west side of the building. I ran along the perimeter of the Pentagon and saw flames rising.”
A video clip broadcast by CNN shows Rumsfeld helping to use a stretcher to transport people to a safe place, and then return to it to coordinate the country’s response.
Evidence later discovered in the declassified records showed that Rumsfeld was already considering the main suspects Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein within a few hours of the attack. (Saddam Hussein) ruled Iraq with retaliatory strikes.
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On the issue of whether to continue to support Rumsfeld, Bush faced resistance from senior Republicans.
“Known Unknown”
The first reaction is to predict what might happen.
On October 7, less than a month after the attack, the U.S. military began airstrikes against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The ground operations were quickly launched, and Rumsfeld provided regular updates at the briefing, which improved his reputation.
But in 2002, the Bush administration’s attention turned to Iraq. The president specifically pointed out that North Korea, Iran, and North Korea all belong to what he called the “axis of evil.” He said that these countries seek weapons of mass destruction and threaten world peace.
Just a few weeks after the State of the Union address was published, Rumsfeld was asked about insufficient evidence at a Pentagon briefing and retorted with his famous “known and unknown”.
This statement was not invented by Rumsfeld, but considering the Bush administration’s position and the controversy about starting the war, this reaction caused widespread ridicule at the time.
After abandoning the resolution that authorized the use of force at the United Nations, the United States and the United Kingdom continued to advance plans for a separate invasion. Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003, but their evidence and reasons have been questioned.
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In November 2001, Rumsfeld (middle) and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (right) visited the World Trade Site together.
Rumsfeld is one of the toughest members of the cabinet and is considered the key planner of this conflict.
That year, he predicted in a memorandum that this war would be a “long and difficult battle.” History has proved this. Nearly 20 years have passed and the US military is still struggling to get rid of the conflict.
The Minister of Defense never stays away from the headlines, and there is always news that he has made a failed decision. Rumsfeld was criticized for his way of handling conflicts during his tenure, and he was known for his frank and controversial improvisational remarks.
But Bush firmly supported him, and even after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, photos of US soldiers and Iraqi prisoners in humiliating poses were leaked.
By then it was clear that despite fear and criticism, Iraq did not stockpile biological, chemical or nuclear weapons before the invasion. With the escalation of rebellions and violence, Rumsfeld’s leadership has also been questioned, and he is facing increasing pressure to resign.
Rumsfeld said that he had resigned twice because of the Abu Ghraib incident, but the president continued to support him, and even asked him to stay in office after the president won re-election in November 2004.
Two more years later, when the Republican Party suffered a terrible defeat in the 2006 midterm elections, Bush finally admitted that he needed to adopt a “new perspective” on the conflict. At this time, Rumsfeld has already been criticized by the public in terms of military equipment. He even admitted that he had used a machine to sign condolence letters to the families of soldiers killed in battle.
The president still expressed his appreciation for his outgoing work and political legacy. But his father, Bush Sr., was not so optimistic-he later described Rumsfeld as an “arrogant guy” and thought that his son’s presidential career had been hurt.
In his 2011 memoirs, Rumsfeld still expressed dissatisfaction with the way the war was handled, but he did regret some of his remarks and admitted that the United States could have sent more troops to Iraq.
In 2013, he became the protagonist of the Oscar-winning director Errol Morris’s documentary “The Unknown Known”.
The filmmakers of the documentary began to study Rumsfeld’s thoughts in depth as they did with the former Secretary of Defense Robert S McNamara in the filming of The Fog of War. But later admitted that after a 33-hour interview with the elusive Rumsfeld, he still seems to know very little about how the Iraq war started.
He compares the meeting with Rumsfeld to the encounter between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in “Alice in Wonderland”, which is equally puzzling.
Morris wrote in the New York Times: “I can’t help but have a terrible question. His smile may not hide anything. It is an extremely self-satisfied smile, and there may be nothing behind the smile.”