WASHINGTON — Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has actually passed away at the age of 88, according to a declaration launched Wednesday by his household.
“It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Donald Rumsfeld, an American statesman and devoted husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather. At 88, he was surrounded by family in his beloved Taos, New Mexico,” the declaration checked out, without defining when Rumsfeld passed away.
“History may remember him for his extraordinary accomplishments over six decades of public service, but for those who knew him best and whose lives were forever changed as a result, we will remember his unwavering love for his wife Joyce, his family and friends, and the integrity he brought to a life dedicated to country.”
Rumsfeld, who worked as the secretary of Defense in the Republican administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush, supervised the Pentagon’s reaction to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Following the attacks, Rumsfeld directed a U.S. military attack on Afghanistan that caused the toppling of the Taliban, who harbored Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders.
Two years later on, Rumsfeld supervised the U.S. intrusion of Iraq, a relocation focused on getting rid of then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
He likewise alerted of a growing toolbox of Iraqi weapons of mass damage, however no such weapons were ever found.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (L) waves beside U.S. President George W. Bush throughout the Armed Forces Full Honor Review in Honor of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon in Washington December 15, 2006.
Larry Downing | Reuters
Rumsfeld, who at first made appreciation for leading America’s military into dispute, was later on slammed as the country burnt out of the Iraq War.
In 2004, Rumsfeld was blamed after pictures emerged of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees apprehended at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.
Rumsfeld had actually personally licensed extreme interrogation strategies for detainees and later on supervised the opening of the detention camp at the U.S. marine base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where foreign terrorist suspects were tortured.
Rumsfeld resigned as Secretary of Defense in 2006 and was changed by then-CIA Director Robert Gates.
In his narrative, “Known and Unknown,” Rumsfeld protected his handling of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and later on composed in “Rumsfeld’s Rules,” a collection of standards he utilized throughout his profession, “If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.”
Before leading the Pentagon, Rumsfeld worked as President Richard Nixon’s ambassador to NATO. Under Ford, Rumsfeld served initially as White House chief of personnel, then as secretary of Defense, the youngest individual ever to lead the country’s biggest federal firm.
The U.S. Navy pilot briefly ran for the Republican U.S. governmental election in 1988.
In the years following 6 years of civil service, Rumsfeld worked as president of 2 Fortune 500 business.
In January, he penned a letter along with the country’s 9 other living secretaries of Defense caution that the U.S. armed force need to have no function in identifying the result of a U.S. election.
The letter came as then-President Donald Trump declined to yield to Joe Biden in the 2020 election and made unwarranted claims about prevalent citizen scams.
The previous Defense secretaries, who jointly supervise America’s military forces for almost 50 years, argued that “the time for questioning the results” of the U.S. governmental election had actually passed.
“Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived,” composed Defense secretaries Mark Esper, James Mattis, Ash Carter, Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Robert Gates, William Perry and Rumsfeld in an op-ed released Jan. 3 in The Washington Post.
“Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party,” penned the previous Defense secretaries.
