Donald Rumsfeld Country Quotations

Your performance depends on your people. Select the best, train them and back them. When errors occur, give sharper guidance. If errors persist or if the fit feels wrong, help them move on. The country cannot afford amateur hour in the White House.

The Secretary of Defense is not a super General or Admiral. His task is to exercise civilian control over the Department for the Commander-in-Chief and the country.

Obviously, the United States does not have a responsibility when a sovereign country engages in something that they disapprove of,

People who are willing to risk their lives need to know the truth, ... They need to understand that they are there based on decisions that were made in good faith, by responsible people, and that this world is going to be a lot better off with Saddam Hussein gone and with that country on a path toward democracy.

I would guess there will be an end, ... Can I tell you for sure? No. ... This isn't World War I or World War II, that starts and then ends. Take Afghanistan. We've moved from major military activities to a point where at the present time, the vast majority of the country is in a stabilization security mode.

is committed to helping you as you take control of your country and make the transition from tyranny to freedom and self-government.

The area of the country he is operating in and the tribes he is in contact with are obviously the dominant population in the country so that whole element has a big role to play in both the operations and the post-Taliban government,

Members of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate are not there by accident. Each managed to get there for some reason. Learn what it was and you will know something important about them, about our country and about the American people.

We in the United States are pleased to have a constructive relationship with your country and would welcome a peaceful and prosperous China -- one that is a major contributor to international progress,

We recognize and respect the leadership role that you have taken in this country politically and from an economic standpoint as well as a security standpoint,

We have broad and deep evidence that suggests that there are people going through that decision-making process throughout that country today, and that is a good thing,

We need your help to capture the rest of them, ... We also need to get rid of foreign fighters, those from neighboring countries who are seeking to hijack your country for their own purposes.

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.

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

We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead.

Members of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate are not there by accident. Each managed to get there for some reason. Learn what it was and you will know something important about them, about our country and about the American people.

The country cannot afford amateur hour in the White House.

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.

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.

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.

... 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.

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

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.

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

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.

Whatever new threats and challenges may emerge, our nation will be able to face them squarely, deal with them, and yet allow our people to continue to live free and unafraid. The decisions you make, the courage and creativity you bring to your responsibilities, will determine America's future. Liberty and our way of life are fragile gifts - their care is in your hands. We thank you for stepping forward to shoulder that immense responsibility. Your country is grateful, and proud of each of you.

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.

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.

We [the USA] do have a big nation's problem. We have the problem of a nation that's got two oceans, oceans on either side. People come from all across the globe and want to live here and they want to work here and they want to invest here. And that's a good thing. And they make up this country. But as a people, we [americans] are not highly skilled in languages. We're not highly skilled in knowledge of other cultures. And that's a problem.

If I look at the really important questions in [Middle East] region, I see Iran, where there is a strong desire for a freer society and where people are repressed by a small group of ayatollahs. I see Syria, where we can see a similar desire of the people to be free. These two countries fund Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations and are hurting our efforts in Afghanistan and have been extremely harmful in Iraq. Then I also see large, important countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

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.

We wanted to be here and meet with the senior leadership in this country because we value their advice, we value their counsel and we recognize that this is a campaign, a war, a battle against a problem that crosses the globe,

The United States is not going to stay in that country and occupy it .... So we'll do our job, we'll do it well and we'll leave,

The United States government is not going to make any arrangement with any other country that would in any way undermine our security agreement with Japan,

problem that's faced by police forces in every major city in our country - that criminals infiltrate and sign up to join the police force.

As a result, we have some folks in that country that have been working with the government and helping them think through ways of doing things,

The way that we can leave that country better than we found it, a lot better -- no more mass graves, no more prisons filled with people -- we can leave it by investing in the kinds of security that we're talking about here, ... That is what this request is overwhelmingly about.

This country has gone in a short period from a haven for terrorists to a coalition ally in the war against terrorism, ... Freedom is clearly taking root in this country, and Afghanistan is on a path to become a model for freedom and moderation in the Muslim world.

They've got a peaceful way to change that government -- through the constitution, through the elections. These people aren't trying to promote something other than disorder and to take over that country and turn it into a caliphate and then spread it around the world.

Absent a dictator, absent the Saddam Hussein regime, our goal would be first to have a single country, not have a country broken up into pieces, it would be to see that it would be a country without weapons of mass destruction, a country that did not try to impose its will upon its neighbors and it was a country that was respectful of the rights of minorities and the ethnic groups that exist in the country,

They have to do it for themselves, ... There isn't an Iraqi that comes into this country and visits with me that doesn't say that. They know that. They know that they're the ones that are going to have to grab that country, and it's time.

I'll guess that when this is over, that this probably will prove to have been the change of hands with the least loss of life in modern memory in that country -- but there will be loss of life.

I really believe that before its over, its not going be a cruise missile or a bomber that is going to be the determining factor, ... It's going to be a scrap of information from some person, in some country that's been repressed by a dictatorial regime that's been sponsoring a terrorist organization that's going to provide the information that's going to enable us to pull this network up by its roots and end it.

I don't think that I would characterize what's going on in Iran as a democratic system, ... I don't think I would say that it fits the principles that I've just indicated. I think there are an awful lot of people in Iran who feel that that small group of clerics that determine what takes place in that country is not their idea of how they want to live their lives.