Donald Rumsfeld Iraq Quotations

I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won't last any longer than that.

helping bring the people of Iraq to a great future.

I think looking for a peaceful Iraq after the elections would be a mistake, ... I think our expectations level ought to be realistic about that. These folks have a lot to lose.

We are in Iraq for as long as it takes to solve the problems in Iraq,

We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.

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

We know where they are [Iraq's weapons of mass destruction]. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.

I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons.

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.

Five days or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last longer.

A few. . . critics are the only people I ever heard use the phrase 'imminent threat.' I didn't, the president didn't.

No terror state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

The United States, as all you know, did not come to Iraq for oil, not to occupy. We came here only to help.

Within a week, or a month, Saddam could give his WMD to al-Qaeda.

I don't think we'll discover anything, myself. I think what will happen is we'll discover people who will tell us where to go find it. It is not like a treasure hunt where you just runaround looking everywhere hoping you find something. I just don't think that's going to happen. The inspectors didn't find anything, and I doubt that we will. What we will do is find the people who will tell us.

Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.

I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work.

When there happens to be a weapon of mass destruction suspect site in an area that we occupy and if people have time, they'll look at it.

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.

They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer.

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.

I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons.

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?

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.

The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost.

We will stay as long as necessary to help you do that, and not a day longer.... Let me be clear: Iraq belongs to you,