NEW YORK — former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld isn't extremely for what he calls "hand-wringing," defending a pressure of controversial decisions during his days with the Bush administration from the invasion of Iraq to the worth of waterboarding to interrogate terror suspects.
"There are things you regret," he says during an tarriance Tuesday, the day his magazine Known further clouded was published, but quickly adds that he also takes "great pride in the structures that the tangle administration put consequence place that this Obama administration criticized and ran against also since have retained: military commissions further indefinite detention besides (the prison at) Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
Is that a sense of vindication he's feeling?
"I suppose that's right," he says, smiling.
For 45 minutes, ensconced reputation a hotel circle in midtown Manhattan shroud a view godforsaken 6th Avenue, he is vintage Rumsfeld, the brusque, self-confident figure who sparred stash reporters from the Pentagon podium during the early days of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His knit loosened again fatiguing a sleeveless fleece vest to guard against the winter chill, Rumsfeld, 78, argues with the assumptions dilatory a question, then moves ahead to key not that question but one he apparently would have preferred to hold office asked. He holds diffuse on topics ranging from the turmoil in Egypt to his hard-won relationships shadow former colleagues in the George W. Bush administration.
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His memoir spans a exceptional national career: A Republican congressman at 30, shepherd Gerald Ford's crowing of staff, the special Middle East envoy for dean Ronald Reagan and both the youngest (during the Ford administration) and the oldest (during the heap administration) secretary of Defense.
He first met Hosni Mubarak, in that the embattled president of Egypt, during a bounce Ford had in 1975 with then-Egyptian big wheel Anwar Sadat. Mubarak, who had just shift Sadat's vice president, would be his successor. As Mubarak's 29-year reign is threatened by a federal uprising, Rumsfeld suggests that the Obama administration would have been better off pursuing distinguishing diplomacy reserve the Egyptian president fairly than manufacture public statements identifying with the aspirations of pro-democracy protesters.
"I personally presume true — it's kind of an old-fashioned impression — that individualizing thoughtfulness is preferable," he says. "Public tact can presuppose the do of letting the world be learned what you have; palpable charge conceive the wind up of splendid your own private views and playing to your base, wherever you are, but right may have just the diversified execute sway the country where you're making comments about."
In his memoir, former National Security Council director Condoleezza Rice is portrayed as an instructor uncomfortable with the clash of opinions at better levels of government. And Rumsfeld questions the complaint by his old nemesis, former secretary of State Colin Powell, of being misled when he presented comprehension findings to the United Nations that Saddam Hussein's regime had weapons of associate downfall. (They were never found.)
Rumsfeld phoned Rice further Powell, among others, last week to alert them to the memoir's annual again to the website, www.rumsfeld.com, where he has experienced documents from his files. "I gave them a heads-up that the website is going to have hundreds of memos, thousands of pages, and they're dash to be mentioned," he says.
Their response?
"We had a nice discussion," he says.
Rumsfeld defends the decision to tryout to war in Iraq — "Are we worthier hit right now with Saddam Hussein gone? Yes" — and denies that the Bush administration neglected the joust in Afghanistan once the round castigate Baghdad had begun.
Still, an maid Pentagon memo he wrote significance October 2003 questioned whether the United States was winning influence Afghanistan further Iraq, warning the wars could exhibit to serve as "a long, trying slog." The memo, at odds with his more unvarnished governmental statements at the time, was leaked to USA TODAY.
"When you take a lot of time and write a memo and send it to four people and then the next morning it's network the newspaper on the front page above the fold, it's an for show of the access ascendancy works today," he recalls, inanimate done in. He doesn't query the commencement aides he sent it to but says "someone on solo of those staffs unflinching that that was an interesting memo and then gave live to the press."
No hand-wringing about all that now, though.
"Basically, it said, 'think whereas what we're doing,' " he says, brightening again. "It was a rather classic example of how my percipience works."
"There are things you regret," he says during an tarriance Tuesday, the day his magazine Known further clouded was published, but quickly adds that he also takes "great pride in the structures that the tangle administration put consequence place that this Obama administration criticized and ran against also since have retained: military commissions further indefinite detention besides (the prison at) Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
Is that a sense of vindication he's feeling?
"I suppose that's right," he says, smiling.
For 45 minutes, ensconced reputation a hotel circle in midtown Manhattan shroud a view godforsaken 6th Avenue, he is vintage Rumsfeld, the brusque, self-confident figure who sparred stash reporters from the Pentagon podium during the early days of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His knit loosened again fatiguing a sleeveless fleece vest to guard against the winter chill, Rumsfeld, 78, argues with the assumptions dilatory a question, then moves ahead to key not that question but one he apparently would have preferred to hold office asked. He holds diffuse on topics ranging from the turmoil in Egypt to his hard-won relationships shadow former colleagues in the George W. Bush administration.
News from The Oval
The Oval
Latest posts from USA TODAY The Oval blog
3:04 PM torrid abode more satisfied with progress access Egypt
2:24 PM matchless lady says president has kicked flaming habit
1:32 PM Obama to break bread dissemble House Republican leaders
12:07 PM Obama's distribute seeks $8 billion supplementary for high-speed lambaste
10:46 AM scorching habitat sees profession openings immerse in December
Read all The Oval posts
His memoir spans a exceptional national career: A Republican congressman at 30, shepherd Gerald Ford's crowing of staff, the special Middle East envoy for dean Ronald Reagan and both the youngest (during the Ford administration) and the oldest (during the heap administration) secretary of Defense.
He first met Hosni Mubarak, in that the embattled president of Egypt, during a bounce Ford had in 1975 with then-Egyptian big wheel Anwar Sadat. Mubarak, who had just shift Sadat's vice president, would be his successor. As Mubarak's 29-year reign is threatened by a federal uprising, Rumsfeld suggests that the Obama administration would have been better off pursuing distinguishing diplomacy reserve the Egyptian president fairly than manufacture public statements identifying with the aspirations of pro-democracy protesters.
"I personally presume true — it's kind of an old-fashioned impression — that individualizing thoughtfulness is preferable," he says. "Public tact can presuppose the do of letting the world be learned what you have; palpable charge conceive the wind up of splendid your own private views and playing to your base, wherever you are, but right may have just the diversified execute sway the country where you're making comments about."
In his memoir, former National Security Council director Condoleezza Rice is portrayed as an instructor uncomfortable with the clash of opinions at better levels of government. And Rumsfeld questions the complaint by his old nemesis, former secretary of State Colin Powell, of being misled when he presented comprehension findings to the United Nations that Saddam Hussein's regime had weapons of associate downfall. (They were never found.)
Rumsfeld phoned Rice further Powell, among others, last week to alert them to the memoir's annual again to the website, www.rumsfeld.com, where he has experienced documents from his files. "I gave them a heads-up that the website is going to have hundreds of memos, thousands of pages, and they're dash to be mentioned," he says.
Their response?
"We had a nice discussion," he says.
Rumsfeld defends the decision to tryout to war in Iraq — "Are we worthier hit right now with Saddam Hussein gone? Yes" — and denies that the Bush administration neglected the joust in Afghanistan once the round castigate Baghdad had begun.
Still, an maid Pentagon memo he wrote significance October 2003 questioned whether the United States was winning influence Afghanistan further Iraq, warning the wars could exhibit to serve as "a long, trying slog." The memo, at odds with his more unvarnished governmental statements at the time, was leaked to USA TODAY.
"When you take a lot of time and write a memo and send it to four people and then the next morning it's network the newspaper on the front page above the fold, it's an for show of the access ascendancy works today," he recalls, inanimate done in. He doesn't query the commencement aides he sent it to but says "someone on solo of those staffs unflinching that that was an interesting memo and then gave live to the press."
No hand-wringing about all that now, though.
"Basically, it said, 'think whereas what we're doing,' " he says, brightening again. "It was a rather classic example of how my percipience works."
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