Donald Henry Rumsfeld (1932 – 2021) has died.

[Kryztian]

Iraq War architect Donald Rumsfeld dead at 88
30 Jun, 2021 19:22 / Updated 2 hours ago

https://www.rt.com/usa/528041-defense-secretary-donald-rumsfeld-dead/

Donald Rumsfeld, former congressman and US defense secretary, best known for his role in advocating the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has passed away just short of his 89th birthday, according to his spokesman.

Rumsfeld died on Tuesday, surrounded by relatives in Taos, New Mexico.

“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,” his family said in a statement.

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Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger – himself a notorious foreign-policy hawk – once described Rumsfeld as “the most ruthless man” he knew and “a skilled full-time politician-bureaucrat in whom ambition, ability, and substance fuse seamlessly.”

Rumsfeld was both the youngest and second-oldest US defense secretary, and held the post twice – first during the Ford administration (1975-1977) and then under George W. Bush (2001-2006). In that capacity, he championed the Global War on Terror following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq – which was falsely presented to the American public as related, along with the since-debunked claim that Baghdad had “weapons of mass destruction.”

His most famous quote came in response to the lack of evidence for Iraqi WMDs. When confronted by a reporter in February 2002, he said:

“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. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.”

Rumsfeld served as the White House chief of staff (1974-75) and the US envoy to NATO (1973-74), among other public posts, and was a four-term congressman for Illinois (1963-69). He also mentored Dick Cheney, who went on to become defense secretary in the George H.W. Bush administration and vice-president under Bush the younger.

He resigned in 2006, amid the mounting public uproar over the quagmire in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib torture revelations, protests from retired generals, and a Republican defeat in the midterm congressional elections.

Rumsfeld later appeared to have recanted some of his previous beliefs, arguing in a 2015 interview that trying to impose democracy in Iraq was “unrealistic,” that UN and NATO were obsolete, and that Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), which arose in Iraq and Syria, partly due to the years of US occupation, would take a Cold War-style coalition and “decades” to defeat.

He ended up being wrong about that too, as the last bit of territory claimed by the ‘caliphate’ in Iraq and Syria was liberated in March 2019.

[Satori]

I’ll probably take flack for this, but if there is a Hell, there is a place there reserved for him with his name on it. He got away in this plane of existence with unimaginable crimes, including mass murder. Indeed, he was grossly rewarded for his crimes.

[thepainterdoug]

condolences to his family.

thats all I can say

[enigma3]

He was the Pentagon spokesperson who said one day prior to 9/11 that 3.4 trillion dollars was missing from the DOD budget. I vote an off planet bad guy. Mayhem is his calling card.

[TomKat]

Ding dong the witch is dead!

[Wind]

An unholy trinity of ultimate crooks. He played his part, may he enjoy his karma too eventually.

https://live.staticflickr.com/3840/15308892346_800701340a_z.jpg

[Uncle Danny]

May he find the peace that eluded him in this life.

[Hym]

My son went to school with one of his grand daughters for a short school year. I knew his daughter for a short while and didn't have enough time with her to get her to smile more. Their life was not his at all, so I always felt protective of my son's classmate and her siblings when I was around them, but I never felt they needed it. May their lives be easier and more humanly servicefull than his was and may his past karma not ever be their burden.

[Richter]

40 years too late.

[oz93666]

I will remember him most for his work in getting Aspartame approved .... This single act has probably led to more deaths than all his war mongering put together ...

" In 1985, Monsanto purchased G.D. Searle, the chemical company that held the patent to aspartame, the active ingredient in NutraSweet. Monsanto was apparently untroubled by aspartame’s clouded past, including the report of a 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, comprised of three independent scientists, which confirmed that it “might induce brain tumors.” The FDA had previously banned aspartame based on this finding, only to have then-Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld vow to “call in his markers,” to get it approved. Here’s how it happened..
Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president January 21, 1981. Rumsfeld, while still CEO at Searle, was part of Reagan’s transition team. This team hand-picked Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., to be the new FDA commissioner. Dr. Hayes, a pharmacologist, had no previous experience with food additives before being appointed director of the FDA. ..."
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-rumsfeld-and-the-s_b_805581

Important to realize ALL humans are born with good intent .... My understanding is even people like Rumsfeld were not born evil ... they came here wanting to improve things . They will be targeted ..psychic influence from the dark spirits .. electronic mind influence from the ET's .. Few can withstand this , the ones that do not completely succumb can be killed , perhaps replaced by a Rep shifter if they are important enough ... Unknown if this was Rumsfeld's fate.

[iota]

the man is DIRECTLY responsible for millions of deaths throughout the planet from which he DIRECTLY profited.

Rumsfield was the Chariman of Gilead Sciences. This position resulted in the acquisition of wealth to the tune of MILLIONS of dollars in shares revenue.

Gilead Sciences sells during the Covid Pandemic? Veklury®, better known as Remdesivir

you know ... that has profited untold millions directly from COVID and the planetary lockdown and terrorizing of the ENTIRE planet.



https://www.commonsensebook.org/images/6-vaccines/05.jpg

straight from their website

January 03, 1997

Donald H. Rumsfeld Named Chairman of Gilead Sciences
Foster City, CA -- January 3, 1997

Gilead Sciences Inc. (Nasdaq: GILD) today announced that board member Donald H. Rumsfeld will assume the position of Chairman, effective immediately. Mr. Rumsfeld succeeds Michael L. Riordan, M.D., who founded Gilead in 1987 and has served as Chairman since 1993. Dr. Riordan will continue to serve as a director on the board.

"Gilead is fortunate to have had Don Rumsfeld as a stalwart board member since the company's earliest days, and we are very pleased that he has accepted the Chairmanship," Dr. Riordan said. "He has played an important role in helping to build and steer the company. His broad experience in leadership positions in both industry and government will serve us well as Gilead continues to build its commercial presence."

"In my years with Gilead, I have witnessed the evolution of one of the industry's premier biotechnology companies," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Michael Riordan's founding vision and enormous accomplishments are evident in the VISTIDE® product approval, deep pipeline and talented team that will continue to move Gilead to develop novel treatments for viral diseases."

Mr. Rumsfeld, who joined Gilead as a director in 1988, is currently in private business and is distinguished for his accomplishments in both industry and government. Mr. Rumsfeld served as chief executive officer of G.D. Searle, a worldwide pharmaceutical company, from 1977 to 1985. During this time, his stewardship of Searle earned him awards as the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the pharmaceutical industry in 1980 and 1981. He also served as chairman and chief executive of General Instrument Corporation, a diversified electronics company and world leader in broadband and all digital high definition television technology.

A graduate of Princeton University, Mr. Rumsfeld has served in numerous positions of public service, including four terms in the U.S. Congress, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, White House Chief of Staff and as the 13th Secretary of Defense. In 1977, Mr. Rumsfeld was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom."

source:
https://www.gilead.com/news-and-press/press-room/press-releases/1997/1/donald-h-rumsfeld-named-chairman-of-gilead-sciences



but he had been in the game of genocide LONG before


r42oejmpkgw

Rumsfeld 'helped Iraq get chemical weapons'

the Daily Mail reported:

By WILLIAM LOWTHER, Daily Mail

"US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped Saddam Hussein build up his arsenal of deadly chemical and biological weapons, it was revealed last night. ...

... As an envoy from President Reagan 19 years ago, he had a secret meeting with the Iraqi dictator and arranged enormous military assistance for his war with Iran.

The CIA had already warned that Iraq was using chemical weapons almost daily. But Mr Rumsfeld, at the time a successful executive in the pharmaceutical industry, still made it possible for Saddam to buy supplies from American firms.
They included viruses such as anthrax and bubonic plague, according to the Washington Post.

The extraordinary details have come to light because thousands of State Department documents dealing with the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war have just been declassified and released under the Freedom of Information Act. ... (Ironically, Rumsfeld as congressman sponsored the FOIA)."

source article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-153210/Rumsfeld-helped-Iraq-chemical-weapons.html


https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-435JhxenWXA/U8G44R1dFrI/AAAAAAAAALE/bBNj053ULMo/s1600/tumblr_msmxpyfSBX1rncbh7o1_500.jpg



... It was in late 1983 that Ronald Reagan made Mr Rumsfeld his envoy as the Iranians gained the upper hand in their war with Iraq.

Terrified that the Iranian Islamic revolution would spread through the Gulf and into Saudi Arabia - threatening US oil supplies - Mr Reagan sent Mr Rumsfeld to prop up Saddam and keep the Iranian militants within their own borders.

The State Department documents show that Mr Rumsfeld flew to Baghdad where he had a 90-minute meeting with Saddam followed by a much longer session with foreign minister Tariq Aziz.

'It was a horrible mistake,' former CIA military analyst Kenneth Pollack said last night. (Wink, wink.)

'We were warning at the time that Hussein was a very nasty character. We were constantly fighting the State Department.'

On November 1, 1983, a full month before Mr Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad, Secretary of State George Shultz was officially informed that the CIA had discovered Iraqi troops were resorting to 'almost daily use of chemical weapons' against the Iranians.

Nevertheless, Mr Rumsfeld arranged for the Iraqis to receive billions of pounds in loans to buy weapons and CIA Director William Casey used a Chilean front company to supply Iraq with cluster bombs.

According to the Washington Post, a Senate committee investigating the relationship between the US and Iraq discovered that in the mid-1980s - following the Rumsfeld visit - dozens of biological agents were shipped to Iraq under license from the Commerce Department.

They included anthrax, subsequently identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological warfare programme.

The newspaper says: 'The Commerce Department also approved the export of insecticides to Iraq, despite widespread suspicions (wink, wink) that they were being used for chemical warfare.'

At the time of his meeting with Saddam, Mr Rumsfeld was working for Searle - a company which dealt only in medicinal pharmaceuticals."


(NOTE: the pictures are horrifying and i scroll quickly to NOT see, so i will NOT post here)

In a declassified 1991 report, the CIA estimated that Iran had suffered more than 50,000 casualties from Iraq's use of several chemical weapons,[180] though current estimates are more than 100,000 as the long-term effects continue to cause casualties.[46][181] The official CIA estimate did not include the civilian population contaminated in bordering towns or the children and relatives of veterans, many of whom have developed blood, lung and skin complications, according to the Organization for Veterans of Iran. According to a 2002 article in the Star-Ledger, 20,000 Iranian soldiers were killed on the spot by nerve gas. As of 2002, 5,000 of the 90,000 survivors continue to seek regular medical treatment, while 1,000 are hospital inpatients.[182][183]

source here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War#Use_of_chemical_weapons_by_Iraq

Rumsfield, who gave Saddam the Chemicals to make poison gas and gave Saddam intel on exactly where to use it, now lies about waterboarding.


oC5RVG8Pbzc

from THINKPROGRESS
MAY 4, 2006, 7:27 PM:

"Speaking in Atlanta today, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was sharply questioned about his pre-war claims about WMD in Iraq. An audience member confronted Rumsfeld with his 2003 claim about WMD, “We know where they are.” Rumsfeld falsely claimed he never said it. The audience member then read Rumsfeld’s quote back to him, leaving the defense secretary speechless. Watch it:

Of course, Rumsfeld did say he knew where the WMD were. From ABC’s This Week, 3/30/03:


STEPHANOPOULOS: And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction?

SEC. RUMSFELD: …We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

RUMSFELD: "We know for a fact, I know for a fact that no one in the Administration lied about weapons of mass destruction." -- Fox News Radio, 6/21/05

VERSUS

RUMSFELD: We know where they [Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction] are. The're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat. -- ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos, 3/30/03

the full script has been scrubbed ..

source:
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/video-rumsfeld-called-out-on-lies-about-wmd-ee2b2f13ad0d/

there is more, but this should suffice to assert that the world is a better place without him is actually an understatement.

and i have to wonder how much did the people around him know?

the reason i ask, is because, in MY experience, people are pretty consistent. a generous person is generous with their time, their money, the affection they provide their family, etc

i find it difficult to believe that he did NOT demonstrate his character to the people that knew him intimately. HOW is it possible that WE would know of his crimes, yet those around him did not? and if they did? WHAT did they do in response?

for example, MY sons? MADE me want to be a better person. i don't just mean i looked in their eyes when they were born and KNEW i wanted to make this world a better place. ...

i mean, Joshua, whose departure from our planet actually made our planet a little "dimmer" without his little "light" that burned so brightly the short time that he was here? ACTVELY MADE me a better person

like he NEVER let me hold a grudge! and taught me forgiveness beyond reason! he would say "oh no mommy! i can't hold a grudge against people like that! it hurts my heart too much" and would literally put his hand to his heart and look into my eyes where i could see him feeeeling pain at just the thought of it

my other son? holds none of that. but he tells me straight. (heaven knows WHERE he learned THAT from?) :Angel:

but i get ZERO slack. if i am wrong. he tells me straight up and is pretty direct and clear in his communication and dealings ... i don't get cut slack .. and it helps keep me in line i will admit

we are ALL dealt with temptation, trials and tribulations. i know of NO person who has walked this earth and been "spared"

i also know of NO ONE who SEES, WITNESSES an event, behavior who and "gets a pass" on ignoring it or avoiding an appropriate response

that's just the truth of it

and what i'm saying is people may have certain predispositions, but they are NOT above "learning"

if someone attacks, and experiences a NEGATIVE repercussion? once? they MIGHT ignore. but if they persist in their negative behavior, and the NEXT person says "Don't do that!"

and the next? and the next?

EVENTUALLY they start to consider perhaps NOT doing that

it is why i say, we are ALL response-ABLE for OUR response to what comes into our awareness

and we need not go "fight" a revolution to make a difference in the world

the truth is? we DO affect our world ~ DAILY

both in what we DO and what we DO NOT DO

and, unfortunately for us? the ENTIRE planet?

there appear to have been MANY "missed" opportunities by the people around this man to have responded to HIM in a way that CLEARLY communicated that his actions were NOT acceptable (to put it very, very mildly)

the TRUTH of what transpired in this man's life? is rather stark and i believe we are in a "fight" for this planet and the very existence of humanity and even in the survival of humanity? the quality of life that it will hold

and we have NO hope of a better tomorrow without understanding how "Yesterday" happened? how it "got" the way it did? and what small every day actions ALL of us could have taken then and CAN take NOW to create a DIFFERENT ~ BETTER tomorrow

it isn't too late to start .. and ALL lives serve as great lessons for all of us i think

this is OUR planet, and we have a RIGHT to do what we can to make it better,

once we understand that we don't have to be at the effect of what happens?

we can begin to take steps to AFFECT our world and make it what WE WANT it to be

:flower:

[iota]

oh .... and the quote he is "infamous" for?

the one he speaks of that "there are things we KNOW that we DON'T KNOW?"

that isn't his!



Sq5mQLArjmo


that's straight out of Landmark Education. a company that does programs on Ontology. it is presented in their very first forum

a pie that shows:

1.) small slice > What we KNOW that WE KNOW (we know, we know English)

2.) another small slice > What we KNOW that WE don't know (maybe how to fly an airplane)

and

3.) ALL the REST of the pie > WHAT we DON'T know that we DON"T KNOW

so .. that was a rip off and inauthentic to be credited for that and never say a word as well

:facepalm:

ps

let's not forget he was the bearer of THIS news .. and the timing of it




Donald Rumsfeld announces 2.3 Trillion missing from the Pentagon on September 10th 2001


IVpSBUgbxBU

[ExomatrixTV]

https://cdn.poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/rumsfeld-unknown-unknowns-1116x423.jpg

https://covenconstruction.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/frontrumsfeldchallenged.jpeg


Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/user-951416283/donald-rumsfeld-never-denied-being-a-shapeshifting-space-lizard)

https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000209344617-yjpbex-t500x500.jpg

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://pics.me.me/never-urs-september-10th-2001-donald-rumsfeld-holds-a-press-23083055.png


jTh32vHnKzs

[Mike Gorman]

It makes no difference how powerful you become, how staggeringly wealthy with vaults of Gold and square miles of property, how important you consider yourself to be: we all cease to breath and our body is vacated. Human, all too human.

[muxfolder]

Louis CK actually asked him if he was a lizard. :bigsmile:

FeaaKh9cwcU

[Kryztian]

Louis CK actually asked him if he was a lizard. :bigsmile:
FeaaKh9cwcU

Shock jock radio isn't usually a favorite of mine BUT this interview, where Louis C.K. repeatedly asks Donald Rumsfeld if he is a shape shifting Lizard, is a classic. Too bad is wasn't done on web cam so we could actually see Rumsfeld face. Rumsfeld comes on at the 58 minutes mark and Opie and Anthony build him up as a humanitarian and patriot, and Louis C.K. starts with the lizard comments at the 1 hour 10 minute mark and starts with the "lizard" question. This goes on for about twenty minutes.

[Kryztian]

I saw up close how Rumsfeld deliberately caused the deaths of US troops for personal gain. He deserves a special place in hell
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'SCORPION KING: America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/528141-donald-rumsfeld-dead-hell/

In my time as a US intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector, I was twice privy to the former US defense secretary’s MO: to manufacture and manipulate ‘intelligence’ so as to start wars. The Devil will need to watch his back.

While I never met Donald Rumsfeld in person, our paths crossed indirectly on several occasions. What I learnt from these experiences hardened my heart toward a man who caused so much harm based on actions that placed ambition over integrity.

In the days following my September 3, 1998, testimony before a joint session of the Senate Armed Forces and Foreign Affairs Committees, where I challenged the US government’s inconsistent policies regarding the disarmament of Iraq, I received a letter from the former defense secretary. When I heard yesterday that Rumsfeld had passed away at the age of 88, I re-read the letter and ruminated about the man who wrote it, and how I felt about him in retrospect.

Any direct communication from a former cabinet member – especially a secretary of defense – is not to be trifled with, especially if it is complimentary in tone and content.

“Dear Mr. Ritter,” Rumsfeld wrote, “I watched you on C-SPAN as you presented your testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

“It was a superb job. You presented your position thoughtfully, constructively, and forcefully, and were not blown by the winds from the other side of the table. Congratulations on your testimony. Congratulations on your performance on behalf of the UN and the United States. Know that you have my best wishes for what I am confident will be a superb future. We need more people like you in our wonderful country, and the example you are setting is a proud one.”

Rumsfeld’s letter gave me pause. Up until that time, I’d had no direct connection with the man. I knew of him by reputation only, first as secretary of defense under President Gerald Ford who, together with the then-White House chief of staff Dick Cheney and a Pentagon official named Paul Wolfowitz, helped promulgate exaggerated claims of Soviet strategic nuclear capability through a so-called ‘Team B’ of politicized analysts whose mission was to second-guess a more nuanced and balanced assessment delivered by the CIA.

The Team B assessment went on to influence the national security policies of the Reagan administration, leading to a nuclear arms race coupled with a dangerous escalation of tensions between the US and the Soviet Union that nearly manifested itself on more than one occasion in the kind of nuclear conflict that would have ended the world as we knew it.

As I was someone who had helped the US and the Soviet Union climb down from the threat of conflict premised on exaggerated threats through the vehicle of verifiable disarmament, the cabal of conspiracy theorists with whom Rumsfeld had found common cause did not register high on my list of people whose opinion I respected.

My opinion of him did not improve when, during my work as a UN weapons inspector charged with disarming Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities, I had the occasion to debrief General Wafiq al-Samarrai, the former head of military intelligence under Saddam Hussein. Samarrai provided the Iraqi perspective on a pair of visits made by Rumsfeld to Iraq – one in December 1983 and another in March 1984 – and the consequences of these visits.

He noted that the purpose of Rumsfeld’s two high-profile missions to Baghdad, where he served as a direct envoy of then-president Ronald Reagan, was to foster a better relationship between the two nations in an effort to make joint cause against their common enemy, Iran. This goal, however, was complicated by Iraq’s ongoing use of chemical weapons against Iran, which put the US in the difficult position of having to condemn Iraq at the same time as it was seeking better relations.

The irony of the US angst, Samarrai told me, was exposed later, when, as a result of the Rumsfeld missions, the US began sharing intelligence with Iraq that helped the Iraqi military target Iranian troop concentrations. This intelligence was critical to Iraq’s success in the second battle of al-Fao, in April 1988, during which the Iraqis used information gleaned from US satellite imagery to help target Iranian defenses with chemical weapons, leading to the destruction of Iranian forces and the recapture of the Fao peninsula.

According to Samarrai, the US intelligence personnel who sat with him inside the military headquarters complex in Baghdad knew what the Iraqi plans were, including the use of chemical weapons, and how the intelligence they were providing would facilitate the deployment of those weapons.

My meetings with Samarrai, which took place over time, initially in the headquarters of the Jordanian General Intelligence Service, in Amman, and later in safe houses operated by the British Secret Intelligence Service in London, only reinforced my overall low opinion of US policy regarding Iraq, and those who formulated and implemented it, including Donald Rumsfeld.

By the time I received Rumsfeld’s letter, I had earlier reviewed the work of the so-called ‘Rumsfeld Commission’ on the threat posed by ballistic missiles. In May 1998, I had been told by Randy Scheunemann, who, at the time, was a senior national security advisor to then-Senate majority leader Trent Lott, that my assessments regarding Iraqi missile capabilities, which had been shared with the US by the UN, had played a major role in influencing the Rumsfeld Commission’s assessment of Iraqi capabilities.

Indeed, when I read the executive summary of the commission’s report, I found my voice present in the text:

“Iraq has maintained the skills and industrial capabilities needed to reconstitute its long range ballistic missile program,” the report noted.

“Its plant and equipment are less developed than those of North Korea or Iran as a result of actions forced by UN Resolutions and monitoring. However, Iraq has actively continued work on the short range (under 150 km) liquid- and solid-fueled missile programs that are allowed by the Resolutions. Once UN-imposed controls are lifted, Iraq could mount a determined effort to acquire needed plant and equipment, whether directly or indirectly.”

In many ways, this assessment represented almost word for word the reports I was preparing at the UN about the risks of having economic sanctions lifted without a viable ongoing monitoring presence in place.

But then the report added a sentence that deviated from all reality: “Such an effort would allow Iraq to pose an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] threat to the United States within 10 years.”

As someone who had investigated the Iraqi ballistic missile capability more closely than any other person on the planet, I knew this statement to be false, and, indeed, every report I prepared for the UN pointed out that Iraq did not possess the ability to produce a viable missile threat either to Europe or the US, and there was no indication that Iraq would, if able, ever seek to acquire such a capability.

As far as I was concerned, the Rumsfeld Commission was little more than Team B reconstituted, this time to exaggerate the threat of ballistic missiles from Iraq in the same way Team B had exaggerated the threat posed by Soviet missiles back in the 1970s.

So, when Rumsfeld was nominated and subsequently confirmed as the secretary of defense for President George W. Bush, I knew exactly the character and ability of the man who would be central to the Bush administration’s WMD-based case for war with Iraq. And, as such, his exaggerated hyperbole in selling the conflict before, during, and after the decision to invade was made came as no surprise.

Given Rumsfeld’s role in fabricating threats to the national security of the US in the form of Team B and the Rumsfeld Commission, I was not taken too much aback when information about the formation of the Office of Special Plans(OSP) – a special unit whose mission was to cherry-pick intelligence reports to manufacture a case for war with Iraq – became public. This was, after all, Rumsfeld’s modus operandi.

What I was not prepared for was the meeting I had in Amman in December 2003 with a former senior Iraqi officer who had been involved in Iraq’s ballistic missile programs. This officer informed me that, in the summer of 2003, he had been interrogated on several occasions by a team from the OSP that had situated itself in one of Saddam’s former villas in what was, in post-invasion Baghdad, known as the Green Zone.

This team was concerned that the US had not found any WMD. “Our president is in trouble,” they told this Iraqi officer. The team wanted him to help them come up with a scheme whereby nuclear material would be brought into Iraq and hidden in a manner that suggested it had existed during the time of Saddam.

The Iraqi officer would then help them fabricate documents attesting to the authenticity of this material, constructing a false chain of evidence that would link it to Saddam’s regime. It would then be ‘discovered’ by the CIA-led team overseeing the search for WMD in Iraq at the time.

The Iraqi officer scoffed at the idea. “You do know,” he told them, “that there are experts in uncovering Iraqi WMD, like Scott Ritter, who would expose such an effort as a fraud in short order. You’d never get away with it.”

The OSP team was nonplussed by this objection. “You know Ritter and how he operates,” they responded. “You can help us build a bulletproof case that even he couldn’t poke holes in.”

The Iraqi officer laughed. “We spent nearly a decade trying to construct lies to conceal our WMD from Mr. Ritter,” he said. “He uncovered them all. Why do you think we would have any better luck now?”

The OSP team eventually got the point, and never again mentioned the idea of planting WMD in Iraq. But what this incident, if true (and I’ve never had any reason to doubt the veracity of anything this particular Iraqi ever told me – his reporting on the fate of Scott Speicher, the US pilot shot down during the Gulf War, was unerringly accurate), underscored the extent to which Rumsfeld and his minions would go to mislead the American people about issues that eventually cost the lives of thousands of US servicemen and women, bankrupted the country they served both morally and fiscally, and left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead and their country in ruins.

Donald Rumsfeld, in his letter, told me that the example I was setting to the people of America was “a proud one.” I wish I could say the same about any aspect of his decades of service. There is a place in hell reserved for those who deliberately put the lives of those entrusted to secure our nation at risk for their own personal gain. Rumsfeld is one such person, and his seat should be right next to the Devil himself.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/528141-donald-rumsfeld-dead-hell/

[Satori]

I saw up close how Rumsfeld deliberately caused the deaths of US troops for personal gain. He deserves a special place in hell
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'SCORPION KING: America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/528141-donald-rumsfeld-dead-hell/

In my time as a US intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector, I was twice privy to the former US defense secretary’s MO: to manufacture and manipulate ‘intelligence’ so as to start wars. The Devil will need to watch his back.

While I never met Donald Rumsfeld in person, our paths crossed indirectly on several occasions. What I learnt from these experiences hardened my heart toward a man who caused so much harm based on actions that placed ambition over integrity.

In the days following my September 3, 1998, testimony before a joint session of the Senate Armed Forces and Foreign Affairs Committees, where I challenged the US government’s inconsistent policies regarding the disarmament of Iraq, I received a letter from the former defense secretary. When I heard yesterday that Rumsfeld had passed away at the age of 88, I re-read the letter and ruminated about the man who wrote it, and how I felt about him in retrospect.

Any direct communication from a former cabinet member – especially a secretary of defense – is not to be trifled with, especially if it is complimentary in tone and content.

“Dear Mr. Ritter,” Rumsfeld wrote, “I watched you on C-SPAN as you presented your testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

“It was a superb job. You presented your position thoughtfully, constructively, and forcefully, and were not blown by the winds from the other side of the table. Congratulations on your testimony. Congratulations on your performance on behalf of the UN and the United States. Know that you have my best wishes for what I am confident will be a superb future. We need more people like you in our wonderful country, and the example you are setting is a proud one.”

Rumsfeld’s letter gave me pause. Up until that time, I’d had no direct connection with the man. I knew of him by reputation only, first as secretary of defense under President Gerald Ford who, together with the then-White House chief of staff Dick Cheney and a Pentagon official named Paul Wolfowitz, helped promulgate exaggerated claims of Soviet strategic nuclear capability through a so-called ‘Team B’ of politicized analysts whose mission was to second-guess a more nuanced and balanced assessment delivered by the CIA.

The Team B assessment went on to influence the national security policies of the Reagan administration, leading to a nuclear arms race coupled with a dangerous escalation of tensions between the US and the Soviet Union that nearly manifested itself on more than one occasion in the kind of nuclear conflict that would have ended the world as we knew it.

As I was someone who had helped the US and the Soviet Union climb down from the threat of conflict premised on exaggerated threats through the vehicle of verifiable disarmament, the cabal of conspiracy theorists with whom Rumsfeld had found common cause did not register high on my list of people whose opinion I respected.

My opinion of him did not improve when, during my work as a UN weapons inspector charged with disarming Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities, I had the occasion to debrief General Wafiq al-Samarrai, the former head of military intelligence under Saddam Hussein. Samarrai provided the Iraqi perspective on a pair of visits made by Rumsfeld to Iraq – one in December 1983 and another in March 1984 – and the consequences of these visits.

He noted that the purpose of Rumsfeld’s two high-profile missions to Baghdad, where he served as a direct envoy of then-president Ronald Reagan, was to foster a better relationship between the two nations in an effort to make joint cause against their common enemy, Iran. This goal, however, was complicated by Iraq’s ongoing use of chemical weapons against Iran, which put the US in the difficult position of having to condemn Iraq at the same time as it was seeking better relations.

The irony of the US angst, Samarrai told me, was exposed later, when, as a result of the Rumsfeld missions, the US began sharing intelligence with Iraq that helped the Iraqi military target Iranian troop concentrations. This intelligence was critical to Iraq’s success in the second battle of al-Fao, in April 1988, during which the Iraqis used information gleaned from US satellite imagery to help target Iranian defenses with chemical weapons, leading to the destruction of Iranian forces and the recapture of the Fao peninsula.

According to Samarrai, the US intelligence personnel who sat with him inside the military headquarters complex in Baghdad knew what the Iraqi plans were, including the use of chemical weapons, and how the intelligence they were providing would facilitate the deployment of those weapons.

My meetings with Samarrai, which took place over time, initially in the headquarters of the Jordanian General Intelligence Service, in Amman, and later in safe houses operated by the British Secret Intelligence Service in London, only reinforced my overall low opinion of US policy regarding Iraq, and those who formulated and implemented it, including Donald Rumsfeld.

By the time I received Rumsfeld’s letter, I had earlier reviewed the work of the so-called ‘Rumsfeld Commission’ on the threat posed by ballistic missiles. In May 1998, I had been told by Randy Scheunemann, who, at the time, was a senior national security advisor to then-Senate majority leader Trent Lott, that my assessments regarding Iraqi missile capabilities, which had been shared with the US by the UN, had played a major role in influencing the Rumsfeld Commission’s assessment of Iraqi capabilities.

Indeed, when I read the executive summary of the commission’s report, I found my voice present in the text:

“Iraq has maintained the skills and industrial capabilities needed to reconstitute its long range ballistic missile program,” the report noted.

“Its plant and equipment are less developed than those of North Korea or Iran as a result of actions forced by UN Resolutions and monitoring. However, Iraq has actively continued work on the short range (under 150 km) liquid- and solid-fueled missile programs that are allowed by the Resolutions. Once UN-imposed controls are lifted, Iraq could mount a determined effort to acquire needed plant and equipment, whether directly or indirectly.”

In many ways, this assessment represented almost word for word the reports I was preparing at the UN about the risks of having economic sanctions lifted without a viable ongoing monitoring presence in place.

But then the report added a sentence that deviated from all reality: “Such an effort would allow Iraq to pose an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] threat to the United States within 10 years.”

As someone who had investigated the Iraqi ballistic missile capability more closely than any other person on the planet, I knew this statement to be false, and, indeed, every report I prepared for the UN pointed out that Iraq did not possess the ability to produce a viable missile threat either to Europe or the US, and there was no indication that Iraq would, if able, ever seek to acquire such a capability.

As far as I was concerned, the Rumsfeld Commission was little more than Team B reconstituted, this time to exaggerate the threat of ballistic missiles from Iraq in the same way Team B had exaggerated the threat posed by Soviet missiles back in the 1970s.

So, when Rumsfeld was nominated and subsequently confirmed as the secretary of defense for President George W. Bush, I knew exactly the character and ability of the man who would be central to the Bush administration’s WMD-based case for war with Iraq. And, as such, his exaggerated hyperbole in selling the conflict before, during, and after the decision to invade was made came as no surprise.

Given Rumsfeld’s role in fabricating threats to the national security of the US in the form of Team B and the Rumsfeld Commission, I was not taken too much aback when information about the formation of the Office of Special Plans(OSP) – a special unit whose mission was to cherry-pick intelligence reports to manufacture a case for war with Iraq – became public. This was, after all, Rumsfeld’s modus operandi.

What I was not prepared for was the meeting I had in Amman in December 2003 with a former senior Iraqi officer who had been involved in Iraq’s ballistic missile programs. This officer informed me that, in the summer of 2003, he had been interrogated on several occasions by a team from the OSP that had situated itself in one of Saddam’s former villas in what was, in post-invasion Baghdad, known as the Green Zone.

This team was concerned that the US had not found any WMD. “Our president is in trouble,” they told this Iraqi officer. The team wanted him to help them come up with a scheme whereby nuclear material would be brought into Iraq and hidden in a manner that suggested it had existed during the time of Saddam.

The Iraqi officer would then help them fabricate documents attesting to the authenticity of this material, constructing a false chain of evidence that would link it to Saddam’s regime. It would then be ‘discovered’ by the CIA-led team overseeing the search for WMD in Iraq at the time.

The Iraqi officer scoffed at the idea. “You do know,” he told them, “that there are experts in uncovering Iraqi WMD, like Scott Ritter, who would expose such an effort as a fraud in short order. You’d never get away with it.”

The OSP team was nonplussed by this objection. “You know Ritter and how he operates,” they responded. “You can help us build a bulletproof case that even he couldn’t poke holes in.”

The Iraqi officer laughed. “We spent nearly a decade trying to construct lies to conceal our WMD from Mr. Ritter,” he said. “He uncovered them all. Why do you think we would have any better luck now?”

The OSP team eventually got the point, and never again mentioned the idea of planting WMD in Iraq. But what this incident, if true (and I’ve never had any reason to doubt the veracity of anything this particular Iraqi ever told me – his reporting on the fate of Scott Speicher, the US pilot shot down during the Gulf War, was unerringly accurate), underscored the extent to which Rumsfeld and his minions would go to mislead the American people about issues that eventually cost the lives of thousands of US servicemen and women, bankrupted the country they served both morally and fiscally, and left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead and their country in ruins.

Donald Rumsfeld, in his letter, told me that the example I was setting to the people of America was “a proud one.” I wish I could say the same about any aspect of his decades of service. There is a place in hell reserved for those who deliberately put the lives of those entrusted to secure our nation at risk for their own personal gain. Rumsfeld is one such person, and his seat should be right next to the Devil himself.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/528141-donald-rumsfeld-dead-hell/

Ritter took the words right out of my mouth. See post #2 on this thread. But he could back it up with his experience.

[s7e6e]

A piece of **** died.

[Mashika]

This may not be very appropriate coming from me

But truly, there's one less weapon of mass destruction on this world now


A piece of **** died.

[Bubu]

May more of his kind perish as soon as possible. The world will be a much better place. Billions of people will have a much better life.

[Ernie Nemeth]

So very happy to hear of the passing. Hope the man gets exactly what he deserves on the other side.

[Kryztian]

from:
How Much Did Rumsfeld Know About UFOs?
https://www.dailygrail.com/2021/07/how-much-did-rumsfeld-know-about-ufos/


From Jacques Valle's Forbidden Science journal, vol. 2 (page 294):

Belmont. Sunday 13 April 1975

Hynek has gone to see Donald Rumsfeld at the White House. Everybody was gloomy there because Nixon had just made a rather poor speech. Allen described the work of the Center [CUFOS], putting it at the disposal of the government. He “had a responsibility before the scientific community,” and didn’t want to waste his time tracking down false reports, he insisted. Therefore he had the need to know if there was a secret study somewhere. Rumsfeld replied abruptly: “You do NOT have a need to know.” Now Allen wonders if the man was reacting purely as a bureaucrat, or if he really knew something.

Was Rumsfeld –who at the time was still Chief of Staff before Ford raised him to Sec. of Defense– merely reminding a civilian scientist of his place in the ‘pecking order’ (despite the fact Hynek still possessed security clearances) or was there a secret meaning behind his words?

Perhaps Rumsfeld was simply preserving the secrecy behind the highly confidential development of stealth aircraft, which was already well underway in the mid-1970s, and whose occasional confusion with UFOs would be exploited by the Air Force for many years. Or maybe he was indeed aware of a classified UFO study which ran completely independent from project Blue Book; let us remember that, contrary to what the disappointing preliminary UAP report would lead us to believe, the US Military already had high-priority reporting systems of UFO sightings well before the issue of the new guidelines prompted by the disclosure of the AATIP program.

[Kryztian]

May more of his kind perish as soon as possible. The world will be a much better place. Billions of people will have a much better life.

The problem is that like viruses, there are always new creepy critters like Rumsfeld. We've lost many of Rumsfeld's ilk lately (David Rockefeller, George H.W. Bush, Zbigniew Brzezinski) and there will be new ones to replace them. The good thing about the critters I just mentioned is that we know who they are, just like we know what COVID-19, HIV and SARS are. The problem with the replacements is we don't yet know what they are and how they behave. Makes it harder to keep them in check and know what they are up to.