Donald Rumsfeld
When someone with a rural accent says, "I don't know much about politics," zip up your pockets.Collection: Pockets
Being Vice President is difficult. Don't make it tougher.Collection: President
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.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Office
Move decisions out to the Cabinet and agencies. Strengthen them by moving responsibility, authority, and accountability their direction.Collection: Moving
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 fullCollection: Country
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.Collection: Deception
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.Collection: Thinking
They will do more whether we do what we're doing or whether we don't do what we're doing. And the idea that you could appease them [terrorists] by stopping doing what we're doing or some implication that by doing what we're doing we're inciting them to attack us is just utter nonsense. It's just - it's kind of like feeding an alligator, hoping it eats you last.Collection: Ideas
Don't 'over-control' like a novice pilot. Stay loose enough from the flow that you can observe it, modify, and improve it.Collection: Novices
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.Collection: People
No. That's someone else's business. Quagmire is - I don't do quagmires.Collection: War
We're not running out of [fixed] targets. Afghanistan is.Collection: Running
Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet.Collection: Perfect
An institution that...would permit Iraq, a terrorist state that refuses to disarm, to become soon the chair of the United Nations Commission on Disarmament, and which recently elected Libya - a terrorist state - to chair the United Nations Commission on Human Rights of all things, seems not to be even struggling to regain credibility. That these acts of irresponsibility could happen now, at this moment in history, is breathtaking.Collection: War
I recognize the need to provide the press - and, through you, the American people - with information to the fullest extent possible. In our democracy, the work of the Pentagon press corps is important, defending our freedom and way of life is what this conflict is about, and that certainly includes freedom of the press.Collection: People
Sausage making and policy-making shouldn't be seen close-up.Collection: Policy Making
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.Collection: People
The press always wants to know how many people will be killed or how much it will cost, but the answers to those questions are not knowable.Collection: People
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.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Country
Every president when he is elected has to live with the pluses and minuses his predecessor leaves, which includes benefits as well as burdens.Collection: President
A president has to provide leadership to gain support.Collection: Support
It is worth reminding that being president is a tough job for anybody, and particularly so in the information age. There's such a glut of information. Anything a president says or does is picked up on the Internet or the 24/7 news media and criticized almost instantly. Leaders persuade through their words and as such their words need to be measured and well chosen. It is a tough job.Collection: Jobs
A terrorist can attack at any time at any place using a range of techniques. It is physically impossible to defend at every time in every location against every conceivable technique of terrorism. Therefore, if your goal is to stop it, you cannot stop it by defense. You can only stop it by taking the battle to the terrorists, where they are and going after them.Collection: Goal
The 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.Collection: Country
When I served as US Ambassador to NATO in the 1970s, the center of gravity in Europe was France and Germany.Collection: Europe
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.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Allies
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?Collection: Hands
If there are people who yearn for the days when Saddam Hussein was in power, then I am not among them.Collection: People
The problem is the people who tend to be the best organized are the most radical and the most vicious.Collection: People
I cannot give any assurances. I'm not in that business. I haven't been, and I don't intend to get into it. People who try to make predictions about things or assurances often find they're wrong.Collection: People
"Do you have any regrets?" Of course I do.Collection: Regret
A terrorist can attack any time, any place using any technique and you can't defend everywhere against every technique at every moment.Collection: Technique
The 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.Collection: Light
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.Collection: Jobs
I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons.Collection: Believe
Five days or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last longer.Collection: War
The most underestimated risk for a politician is overexposure.Collection: Risk
Don't divide the world into "them" and "us."Collection: World
We are in the process of trying to liberate that country. And at the moment where the war ends and the coalition forces occupy the areas where those capabilities - chemical and biological weapons - are likely to be, to the extent they haven't been moved out of the country, it obviously is important to find them.Collection: Country
I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours?Collection: Four
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.Collection: Taken
Any country on the face of the Earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.Collection: Country
In 2003, at the time I made my "Old Europe" comment, the center of gravity in NATO and Europe had long since shifted to the East. With the former Warsaw Pact countries joining NATO, the alliance has a different mix today. Some people were sensitive about my comment because they thought it was a pejorative way of highlighting demographic realities. Apparently they felt it pointed a white light at a weakness in Europe - an aging population. Europe has come some distance since World War II in becoming Europe.Collection: Country
What is the value of having millions of people in Iraq not having a repressive regime? What is the value of having the Iraqi regime not shooting at UK and US aircraft almost every day? What is the value of the Iraqis having a free press? What is the value of the foreign minister of Iraq going to Paris, calling for an end of the Gadhafi regime and citing Iraq as a model, as an example, that in fact a freer political system can exist in that part of the world?Collection: Iraq
You'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.Collection: Thinking
I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work.Collection: Stupid