732 Quotes by Donald Rumsfeld

The reality is that terrorists can attack any time at any minute, 24 hours a day, using a variety of techniques, in any place at all. And it's not possible to defend in every place, against every technique, against every conceivable approach. It means that you can't stop every terrorist attack. Innocent men, women and children are going to be killed if terrorists are determined to do it.

There are things that we know, and there are things that we don't know. Then there are the things that we don't even know that we don't know. Those are the things that are the hardest.

They are fully aware that these are dangerous individuals,

The impression that's left around the world is that we plan to occupy the country, we plan to use their bases over the long period of time, and it's flat false, ... We went in there to change a regime, we went in there to find weapons of mass destruction, we went in there to stop them from threatening their neighbors, and we have said precisely what we're there for, and it's not what that article says.

The president's point was there are some things that are of sufficient magnitude that they require something to substitute for the overwhelmed first responders at the state and local level,

So I remain inexpert on precisely what he said, and I'm told he used notes and not text,

When you raise issues with the President, try to come away with both that decision and also a precedent. Pose issues so as to evoke broader policy guidance. This can help to answer a range of similar issues likely to arise later.

We have been targeting caves and tunnels and closing them up and getting a lot of secondary explosions, in some cases, when they were used for ammunition storage,

And there is, I am certain, among the Iraqi people a respect for the care and the precision that went into the bombing campaign.