Donald Rumsfeld Quotes on People (81 Quotes)


    where you, the Iraq people, will choose your own leaders.

    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.

    In some instances, people have been killed and in still other instances they've been wounded. And still others, we have reason to believe they might have escaped to another country. In other cases, we don't know where they are,

    In Washington, thousands of people marched in remembrance of the attacks and in tribute to troops fighting overseas. I wish we could say ... that we were gathering today to commemorate a danger that had long since past, ... But we cannot. The enemy, though seriously weakened and continuously under pressure, continues to plot attacks, and the danger they pose to the free world is real and present.

    Australians and Americans share convictions as strong and independent people. And at this time our two countries could not be closer in our common values and attitudes towards the challenges the free world faces,


    We are seeing history unfold, events that will shape the course of a country, the fate of a people and potentially the future of the region.

    Many millions of people will believe them, despite the fact that they are so patently false.

    Those who sabotage the efforts to restore power and water and other services are not attacking the coalition, they are attacking you, the Iraqi people. With your cooperation we're dealing with them.

    I guess the one word that comes to mind is really 'duty.' You've done yours, ... The people of New York have done theirs, and the men and women in uniform are still doing theirs.

    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.


    Prune - prune businesses, products, activities, people. Do it annually.

    There are an awful lot of people chasing the wrong rabbit here, it seems to me,

    As enemy leaders become fewer and fewer that does not necessarily mean that the task will become easier, ... People can hide in caves for long periods, and this will take time.

    There is no question that the effectiveness of the bombing is vastly improved as you have people on the ground in communication with the aircraft overhead, ... We now have some larger number of teams of people on the ground ... and the effectiveness of bombing is improving every day.

    It isn't a complete success, ... We've got a lot of difficult work yet to do. Today is a very good day, it's wonderful to see the faces of people who have been liberated.

    Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed brutal dictators, and the Iraqi people are well on their way to freedom,

    That number included people, as we said, that had uneven training and uneven equipment. We improved our analysis, and we've gotten much better visibility into the situation,

    It's not an effort against the Afghan people, ... Indeed, we are providing humanitarian assistance.

    But we don't go out and say something inaccurate about it. You lose so much more if, in fact, people cannot believe what you're saying.


    This effort is certainly not against the Afghan people. It's not against a race. It's not against a religion. It's against terrorists who came into the United States and killed thousands of human beings, innocent people,

    This is a group of people who don't merit the word insurgency,' I think,

    How many young people are being taught to go out as suicide bombers and kill people ... How does that inflow of terrorists in the world get reduced so that the number of people being captured or killed is greater than the ones being produced

    In fact, in a number of parts of the country, people already have more food, water and electricity than they had under the old regime, ... But some do not have these necessities, and the coalition is working day and night to help provide them.

    What they're doing is they're trying to pretend that they're functioning well, leave the impression that people should give them money, their financiers, leave the impression that they're a viable organization and that they should get recruits, and just generally give encouragement to their people,

    To say that these attacks are in any way attacks against Afghanistan or the Afghan people is flat wrong,

    Well, the -- as the Chief of Staff of the Army can tell you, the guards are trained to guard people. They're not trained to interrogate. And their instructions are to, in the case of Iraq, to adhere to the Geneva Conventions.

    We're not inclined to add to the number of people that would be given that extensive access,

    It was a large convoy, and there were a lot of people killed and a lot of vehicles damaged, or destroyed, I should say.

    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.

    They know where the bank accounts are, they know the names of the people who were trained, they know the sleeper cells that exist around the world,

    These people are committed terrorists, ... We are keeping them off the street and out of the airlines and out of nuclear power plants and out of ports ... , and it seems to me a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

    While there is no one model that is perfect for every nation at every time in its development, a look across the globe suggests that societies that tend to encourage more open markets and freer systems are societies where the people are enjoying the greatest opportunities,

    It is clear the better the relationships and the better organized we are with respect to security matters, the better able we will be to deal with disasters, natural or manmade, ... And that is a good thing for our people.

    What they need is blankets and tents and medicines. They have a lot of doctors, people on the ground.

    people all across the spectrum, insurgents and opponents, people kind of leaning that way, people in the middle, people leaning toward the government and then the government.

    It's based on unit cohesion, ... The principle is that -- in the event there is something that requires a unit to be involved in, and people are in a personal situation where their time was ending -- they put a stop-loss on it so cohesion is maintained.

    In the event (war) becomes necessary, there would be the precipitating event of rejecting the inspectors, which would be such that people would nod and say, 'Fair enough If he's (Saddam Hussein) that determined to keep the weapons of mass destruction and that unwilling to disarm himself, then he must have a darn good reason and that isn't going to be very good for the neighborhood or for the rest of the world,'

    The new government would be an Iraq that would be for the Iraqi people. It wouldn't be a regime determined from the outside of Iraq, ... nonsense.

    No other living dictator matches Saddam Hussein's record of waging aggressive war against his neighbors, ... pursuing weapons of mass destruction, using them against his own people, launching missiles against his neighbors, brutalizing and torturing his own citizens, harboring terrorist networks, engaging in terrorist acts including the attempted assassination of foreign officials, violating international commitments, lying and hiding his W. M. D. weapons of mass destruction programs from inspectors, deceiving and defying the expressed will of the United Nations over and over again.


    The president, the secretary of defense and the combatant commanders are never more than a minute or two away from a secure phone. ...Very, very senior people are able to address a matter in real time and ask the right questions and make the right judgments,

    Our task, your task... is to try to connect the dots before something happens. People say, 'Well, where's the smoking gun?' Well, we don't want to see a smoking gun from a weapon of mass destruction.

    I have not seen the tape. I do not know if that is on the tape.. whether or not he was dead or alive when whatever took place did take place, ... It seems to me that one ought to be willing to allow some time to pass over something like this so that the people who are looking at these things can come to some conclusions.

    Public servants are paid to serve the American people. Do it well.

    The Iraqi people are going to sort out what the Iraqi government ought to look like,

    You've rescued a nation, you've liberated a people, you've deposed a cruel dictator and you've ended his threat to free nations. You've braved death squads and dust storms racing across hundreds of miles to reach Baghdad in less than a month.

    Ix2019m not a doctor and Ix2019m not the kind of a person who would be in a position to approve or disapprove. It seems to me, looking at it from this distance, is that the responsible people are the combatant commanders. And the Army is the executive agent for detainees.

    They found courage, ... Indeed, millions of people found courage.


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