Donald Rumsfeld, who served as former President George W Bush’s defence secretary and was the architect of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, died at the age of 88, his family announced Wednesday.
His stint as Bush’s defence secretary from 2001-2006 was his second, after serving as the youngest Secretary of Defense in US history under former President Gerald Ford from 1975-1977.
“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’s family said in a statement posted on Twitter.
Rumsfeld “was surrounded by family in his beloved Taos, New Mexico”, his family said but they did not indicate when he died.
Bush, in a statement, said, “On the morning of September 11, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld ran to the fire at the Pentagon to assist the wounded and ensure the safety of survivors. For the next five years, he was in steady service as a wartime secretary of defense – a duty he carried out with strength, skill, and honor.”
Bush praised Rumsfeld as “a man of intelligence, integrity, and almost inexhaustible energy, he never paled before tough decisions, and never flinched from responsibility” and said “the United States of America is safer and better off for his service.”
Iyad el-Baghdadi, president of the Kawaakibi Foundation, a research and activist group focused on liberty in the Arab world, was highly critical of Rumsfeld tweeting, “Donald Rumsfeld was a war criminal who presided over illegal wars that involved wholesale massacres of civilians, systemic torture and plunder, and massive corruption. The country he helped break has still not recovered. This is his legacy. May he burn in hell for all eternity.”
Rumsfeld oversaw the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but failed to maintain law and order in the aftermath, and Iraq descended into chaos with a bloody insurgency and violence between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims. US troops remained in Iraq until 2011, long after he left his post.
Many historians and military experts blamed Rumsfeld for decisions that led to difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For example, Rumsfeld insisted on a relatively small invasion force in Iraq in 2003, rejecting the views of many generals. The force then was insufficient to stabilize Iraq when Saddam fell.
As he did in Iraq, Rumsfeld in 2001 sent a small force to Afghanistan, quickly chased the Taliban from power and then failed to establish law and order or capture Osama bin Laden, who remained elusive for another decade.
Iraq War
Rumsfeld played a leading role ahead of the war in making the case to the world for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. He warned of the dangers of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction but no such weapons were ever discovered.
Critics faulted Rumsfeld for dismissing the pre-invasion assessment of the Army’s top general, Eric Shinseki, that several hundred thousand allied troops would be needed to stabilize Iraq.
Rumsfeld also was accused of being slow to recognize the emergence of the insurgency in 2003 and the threat it posed.
In a 2011 interview with Al Jazeera, Rumsfeld was asked about whether the initial size of the Iraq invasion force and the Bush administration policies regarding the war were “responsible for the killing of innocent Iraqis”.
“You keep making assertions which are fundamentally false,” a combative Rumsfeld responded. “No one in the Pentagon said they [number of troops] were not enough.”
Afghanistan
Rumsfeld also oversaw the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban leaders who had harbored the al-Qaeda leaders responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States.
US forces during Rumsfeld’s tenure also were unable to track down Osama bin Laden. The al-Qaeda chief slipped past a modest force of US special operations troops and CIA officers along with allied Afghan fighters in the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora in December 2001. US forces killed him in 2011.
Critics argue that had Rumsfeld devoted more troops to the Afghan effort, bin Laden may have been taken. But as he wrote in “Rumsfeld’s Rules,” his compilation of truisms dating to the 1970s: “If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.”
Rumsfeld twice offered his resignation to Bush in 2004 amid disclosures that US troops had abused detainees at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison — an episode he later referred to as his darkest hour as defense secretary.
Not until November 2006, after Democrats gained control of Congress by riding a wave of antiwar sentiment, did Bush finally decide Rumsfeld had to go. He left office in December, replaced by Robert Gates.
