Where is rumsfeld

Secretary Rumsfeld had directed the actions of the Defense Department in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, Thus far, the Global War on Terror has resulted in the liberation of 25 million Afghanis and 27 million Iraqis, with free elections in both of those nations. Two-thirds of known Al Qaeda leaders have been captured or killed.

The war is being waged against a backdrop of major change within the Department of Defense. The department has developed a new defense strategy and replaced the old model for sizing forces with a newer approach more relevant to the 21st century.

Secretary Rumsfeld proposed and the President approved a significant reorganization of the worldwide defense command structure, known as the Unified Command Plan, which resulted in the establishment of the U. Northern Command and the U. Strategic Command, the latter charged with the responsibilities formerly held by the Strategic and Space Commands which were disestablished. He has also initiated a global restructuring of U. The Department of Defense has developed a new model for civil service, known as the National Security Personnel System.

Additionally, Secretary Rumsfeld will oversee what could be the largest round of base readjustments in U. Navy as an aviator and flight instructor. In , he transferred to the Ready Reserve and continued his Naval service in flying and administrative assignments as a drilling reservist until He transferred to the Standby Reserve when he became Secretary of Defense in and to the Retired Reserve with the rank of Captain in Paul Bremer took over as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and the early date for transferring sovereignty was pushed back.

The American liberators had become occupiers. An Iraqi officer later told me that this breach of trust with the Iraqi people marked the true start of the insurgency. The insurgency was not just caused by the symbolism of the U. A series of stunningly ill-advised decisions followed. This intensified the chaos in Iraq. Then, the Iraqi army was disbanded, and the officer corps purged, even to the extent of seizing their pensions. Respected tribal leaders were bluntly informed that their days of power were over.

These foolish moves created a core of angry Iraqis with military expertise, extensive in-country influence networks, a need for income and deep hatred of the United States.

This aligned their interests with al-Qaida and Iran, and the rest followed. How much easier it would have been to just keep all these people on the payroll, to buy their cooperation, rather than fuel their desire for revenge.

And how much better to have left it to the Iraqis to sort out their new government, rather than micro-managing a result that still had not brought stability when the Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded a year later. Whether or not Rumsfeld had anything to do with those terrible decisions, he supported them, and he suffered the results.

War on Terror: Afghanistan squandered its year opportunity. Joe Biden must stand firm on withdrawal. To paraphrase Rumsfeld, you go to war with the policymakers you have, not the policymakers you might want.

James S. Bush administration. Rumsfeld listens as Bush speaks to reporters at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, in June Peter Pace for a Pentagon ceremony in December Bush was replacing Rumsfeld as secretary of defense.

Rumsfeld waves after making remarks at his retirement ceremony in December Rumsfeld signs books after speaking at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in Rumsfeld is interviewed for a documentary about White House chiefs of staff in Rumsfeld and Bush take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Pentagon Memorial on the September 11 anniversary in Read More. Rumsfeld had an effervescent personality and could be mischievous and cocky, though critics -- including some in the Bush administration -- regarded him as arrogant and a bully.

His Washington legacy is dominated by the Iraq war. Rumsfeld refused to accept blame for or repudiate the conduct of the conflict when conditions deteriorated and US troops faced a vicious insurgency -- after the weapons of mass destruction on which the Bush administration had used to justify the invasion in never materialized. His decision to insist on a "light footprint" for US troops was blamed by many critics for the collapse of the Iraqi state after the US invasion -- conditions that fed the insurgency and fractured security.

Many of his antagonists also held Rumsfeld responsible for the detainee abuse scandal in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad that severely tarnished America's reputation abroad. He had also predicted that a conflict that in the end dragged on for years would be a short war. US troops did topple the Iraqi regime within weeks but Rumsfeld's critics accused him of having no plan for the aftermath of the invasion. Rumsfeld died in the week in which President Joe Biden is expected to complete US involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan, which was launched while Rumsfeld was at the Pentagon and is America's longest war.

Bush's speech from his home March 17, , in Washington, DC. Bush praised Rumsfeld in a statement on Wednesday as an "exemplary public servant and a very good man. He brought needed and timely reforms to the Department of Defense, along with a management style that stressed original thinking and accountability.

In his second go-around in the Pentagon, Rumsfeld was known for a confrontational attitude toward military brass and the press. Making the WMD case against Iraq, he produced one of his most notorious quotes in But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. During the war on terror, which came to dominate Washington and US diplomacy early in the 20th century, Rumsfeld formed a fearsome duo with Cheney, driving hardline policies that sometimes tested the Constitution and a unilateral approach that infuriated US allies in what he derided as "old Europe.

Rumsfeld used to bury fellow members of the administration and subordinates in the Department of Defense with pointed and often critical notes that quickly became known as "snowflakes. He resigned from the Bush administration in late , paying the price for the deterioration in Iraq, which contributed to Democrats seizing back the House and Senate in midterm elections -- and eventually paved the way for Barack Obama's presidency.

As he accepted full military honors before leaving, he defiantly warned against watering down the neoconservative policies that led the US into Iraq. Cheney used his friend's retirement ceremony to praise him as an ideal public servant from whom he learned how to play the inside game in Washington while Rumsfeld was chief of staff to Ford. Don is a superb executive who knows how to cut through to an issue at once.

He embodies the adage that a statesman should act as a man of thought, and think as a man of action. A Cold Warrior. Burger, right, during a ceremony on February 2,, at the White House.