Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense, 1932-2021

Donald Henry Rumsfeld, who is dead at the age of 88, he had the unique privilege of being the largest and largest of all to become Secretary of Defense in the US. His writings on the project, dedicated by a quarter of a century, were first made by the Cold War and then by what he called the “World War Against Terrorism”. He was portrayed as a troubled war veteran in Washington as well as a symbol of American foreign power, which he demonstrated with courage and reliance on pride.

It was his unwillingness to criticize what, critics said, he had written his legacy: to help convince the President George W Bush to seize Iraq in 2003 after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Rumsfeld, who supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi invasion even before he took office as Bush’s Secretary of Defense in 2001, became a rebel leader. He recruited the military on a mission and did not ignore the ambassadors who asked him to prepare for the post-war preparations. He later criticized the fast-paced war against Saddam into a major issue for which the US was unprepared.

Rumsfeld was born in the Chicago area on July 9 1932, the son of George and Jeanette Rumsfeld. He grew up in the Chicago area of ​​Winnetka, where he became an Eagle Scout and went to New Trier High School. The Rumsfeld family also lived in Coronado, California, during World War II, when George was in the US air force.

After graduating from the University of Princeton, where he was part of the military, Save became a sailor in 1954. In the same year he married Joyce Pierson, who had two daughters and one son.

After being laid off in 1957, he went to work in Washington as a conference assistant, less than two years ago as a financier in Chicago. In 1962 he was elected to the US Embassy as Illinois Republican and held three positions. He resigned in 1969 to join Richard Nixon’s new superintendent as director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, an organization that now oversees poverty alleviation activities. One of the first recruits was Dick Cheney, who later as vice president of the US did well to bring his mentor to the Pentagon in 2001.

Rumsfeld prospered in the capital. In 1971 he was appointed director of the economic stabilization program and two years later he was sent to Brussels as US ambassador to Nato. But Nixon’s resignation in 1974 brought him back home, first to lead President Gerald Ford’s transition team and then to White House chief of staff Cheney as his second and second successor.

In 1975, the 43-year-old, Rumsfeld became the last young secretary of all time. The condition of his selection was disappointing. His successor, James Schlesinger, was fired by Ford after a series of altercations with Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State.

Once placed in the Pentagon, Rumsfeld became a wise general manager. It seemed as if he had received a deadly inheritance. The Soldiers were not in the throes of a revolutionary movement but were disillusioned with the Vietnam War. In addition, political tensions had changed for the better.

He faced the challenge, asking for a complete overhaul of weapons, repair of aerospace and a B1 bomber, a demonstration he boarded as a pilot, several warships and, naturally, a huge budget. He justified his plans on the grounds that the threat of the former Soviet Union did not go unnoticed, and in his first year, he made more money.

But he also fell off the battlefield. He was abducted on January 7, 2006 in M-1 by gunmen and was dropped off by unknown individuals. And he publicly criticized General George Brown, a former US military official, for the illegal explosion, which, among other things, called the British army “extremist”.

The democratic victory in the 1976 elections prompted Rumsfeld to take up public office. He served as executive and chairman of GD Searle, a Chicago-based pharmaceutical company, before becoming General Instrument Corp., a pioneer in high-end video production. From 1997 to 2001 he was the chairman of Gilead Science, a drug manufacturer in the US known for its HIV treatment.

Although he did not return to the cabinet during the Republican regime Ronald Reagan or his former ally George HW Bush, he remained a powerful spokesman for security issues, and briefly tried to run for president only after he completed a second Reagan term in 1988. Known in 1998 by the Republican leadership in Congress, in order to chair the arms industry commission, confirmed that the risk of “invading” countries like North Korea was high. His report recommended the case, approved by George W Bush in 2001, for the development of weapons of mass destruction. He also publicly called for Saddam to be “forcibly removed” if necessary.

His return to the Pentagon in 2001 did not go well at first. He immediately ordered a re-enactment of US military intelligence, but the way the communication process took place shocked the self-proclaimed military force.

Rumsfeld did not do well to stick to a larger defense budget. Somehow he was beheaded, as the new Bush administration was intent on cutting deep taxes and did not want to make a significant increase in the department’s spending. But his silence made him unpopular in some courts on the right. By the summer of his first year, a number of experts are also asking for a change. This changed with the terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001. After a plane crashed into the Pentagon, he rushed to his office to try to save the trapped, much to the delight of his colleagues.

Rumsfeld will be remembered not only for his talent but also for his aphorisms. His confession in 2002 that there were “well-known” and “unknown” plans for the Iraqi government’s use of weapons of mass destruction, when he was initially ridiculed, became part of a political rhetoric for troubled leaders.

Rumsfeld resigned in 2006, after Republicans began voting in the by-elections over alleged dissatisfaction with the Iraqi military. He leaves the band but published two books – a 2011 memorial called Known and Unknown and a 2013 technical book called Rumsfeld Code: Business Leadership Training in Business, Politics, War, and Life. He also took part Errol Morris’s Notes of his life.

In his later years, he launched a game program called Churchill Solitaire, based on the type of game played by the UK Prime Minister. And six months before his death, he wrote comments in The Washington Post along with nine other former US security secretaries, warning them not to take part in Donald Trump’s attempt to bar Joe Biden from becoming President.