Donald Rumsfeld served his second tour of duty as Secretary of Defense from Jan. 20, 2001, to Dec. 18, 2006. He is one of America’s most accomplished public servants. And he was arguably the best prepared secretary of defense, having not only served in that job before, from Nov. 20, 1975 to Jan. 20, 1977, but having also been White House chief of staff, America’s ambassador to NATO and a congressman, among many other successes.
He had also been a Navy pilot. He knew Washington, D.C., he knew the Pentagon, he knew Congress, he thought long and hard about the new enemies that had populated the world since his first tour as defense secretary and struck the U.S. on 9/11. His memoir of his life, Known and Unknown, is one of the best of its kind and will be read by serious students of strategy and military affairs for decades. He resigned after the disastrous (for President Bush) elections of 2006 and the setbacks on the battlefields of Iraq.
