Return to 'the Best of Donald Rumsfeld'
Quotable Quotes (memorable one liners)
We would be happy to capture them, we'd be happy to have them surrender, and if they don't, we'd be happy to kill them.
Well, the U.N. doesn’t have forces.
I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing [by Guantanomo prisoners] limited to 4 hours?
I know in my heart and my brain that America ain’t what’s wrong with the world.
There is nothing that some people don't think.
You’re not asking the question that I’ve answered.
So why they would be actively proliferating and then complaining when the United States wants to defend itself against the, the fruit of those proliferation activities, it seems to me, is misplaced.
So the idea that you can assert a negative is a very difficult thing and I don’t make a practice of it.
I'm hopeful that some will surrender. I suspect some won't, and I suspect the result of that will be that the opposition forces will kill them.
But I would guess if they're knowledgeable unnamed sources, it would very closely approximate what I just said.
I tend to be impatient, so there’s no question but that from time to time I help people understand the difference between good work and poor work.
Now, on the other hand, if secretaries of defense resigned every time someone did something they shouldn’t do out of the millions of people involved in the defense establishment, or a mayor or a governor -- something happened in their country, you wouldn’t have anyone in public office.
I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who once said that trying to transform the Army of the United States was like trying to empty the Potomac River with a teaspoon. It isn't easy.
We're not running out of targets. Afghanistan is.
I generally say roughly what I think. And I said they are being unhelpful.
I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said.
You're reasonably correct as to what I said and I believe what I said is reasonably correct.
I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than
the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started.
We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other
country, or dead.
Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.
The enemies of order and democracy and freedom and civil society and rule of law have brains, regrettably. And they use those brains and they adapt.
On the other hand if you consider it carefully, the enemy has a brain.
The implication that every
time something happens in the world, you should fire somebody is kind of a -- not a -- kind of a
mindless approach, it seems to me -- the implication of it.
Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know,
there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns;
that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns --
the ones we don't know we don't know.
There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist.
If I said yes, that would then suggest that that might be the only place where it might be done which would not be accurate, necessarily accurate. It might also not be inaccurate, but I'm disinclined to mislead anyone.
It’s unlikely that things will be perfectly predictable.
He’s [Zarqawi] a person that ought not to be out loose. He’s a killer, he’s a terrorist, he is a person who is helping facilitate and train and finance people that kill innocent men, women and children. And that’s not a terribly civilized thing to do and an awful lot of folks in the world would like to see it stopped.
Congress, the press, and the
bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or
effort actually achieves the announced goal.
Beware when any idea is promoted
primarily because it is "bold, exciting, innovative, and new." There are many ideas that
are "bold, exciting, innovative and new," but also foolish.
Treat each federal dollar as if it was hard earned; it was - by a taxpayer.
Learn to say "I don't know." If used when appropriate, it will be often.
Success tends to go not to the person who is error-free, because he also tends to be risk-averse.
The idea that because you can't do everything you shouldn't try to do anything is really not a very persuasive argument, it seems to me.
You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe.
If I know the answer I'll tell you the answer, and if I don't, I'll just respond, cleverly.
With that I'll stop and answer questions. Respond to questions.