Rumsfeld's Take: Karzai Snubs West, Backs Putin's Power Grab

Mar. 24, 2014 - 4:22 - Former defense secretary on Afghan President Karzai, joining Syria and Venezuela in backing Russia's annexation of Crimea

Rumsfeld on Ukraine, Obama-Putin, and America

Mar. 03, 2014 - 4:13 - Former defense secretary on president's handling of the Ukraine crisis and Putin and what it means to America's perception on the world stage

Al-Qaeda: Dick Cheney Calls for the Return of Enhanced Interrogation
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding played a role in tracking down Osama bin Laden and should be reinstated, former US vice president Dick Cheney said.

Another top member of the Bush administration, former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, credited the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" with yielding "a major fraction" of US intelligence on al-Qaeda and called ending them a "mistake."

In one of the first acts after entering the White House in 2009, President Barack Obama suspended such methods, equating them with torture and saying they represented all that was wrong with the Bush-era "war on terror."

But the killing of bin Laden, or more exactly the way the intelligence was gathered that led the CIA to track him down, has reopened a raging controversy in the United States over their use.

Cheney, speaking on the "Fox News Sunday" program, said top intelligence officials had stated that "some of the early leads" that helped agents find bin Laden had come thanks to the harsh interrogation techniques used on terror suspects.

"All have said one way or the other that the enhanced interrogation program played a role," he said. "My guess is that's probably the case that it contributed, just as did a number of other factors."

Asked whether the methods should be reinstated if the United States were to capture a new high-value target, Cheney replied: "I certainly would advocate it. I'd be a strong supporter of it." » | Telegraph’s Foreign Staff | Monday, May 09, 2011

Donald Rumsfeld Criticises Barack Obama for Undermining 'Special Relationship'
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary who sent American forces to war alongside British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, has criticised President Barack Obama for undermining the relationship between the two close allies.

"My impression is that the Obama administration is taking steps that at least symbolically have distanced his White House from what I have throughout my career valued as a special relationship," Mr Rumsfeld told The Sunday Telegraph.

"I don't know what it looks like from the other side of the pond, but certainly here it has dramatised the things that the Obama administration has done that are unhelpful to the relationship."

The former defence secretary cited Mr Obama's actions and words, from his early removal of the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office to his recent assertion that the US does not have "have a stronger friend and stronger ally" than France.

"It seems gratuitous to me," Mr Rumsfeld said last week in an interview to coincide with publication of Known and Unknown, his 730-page memoir of his time in office under President George W Bush. The book, the latest in a series of insider accounts from those who served in the Bush administration, went straight to number one on Amazon, the online bookseller.

President Obama's glowing reference to French allies was particularly galling for the veteran Republican official who had taken a very different view - dismissing both France and Germany as "problems" and "old Europe" when they opposed the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. >>> Philip Sherwell, New York | Sunday, February 13, 2011

Bush Knew Guantánamo Prisoners Were Innocent, Former Colin Powell Aide Tells Court
MAIL ONLINE: George W Bush knew that hundreds of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay were innocent - but covered the fact up for political reasons, a top former aide has told a U.S. court.

Retired Army Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, testified that officials 'knew that they had seized and were holding innocent men at Guantanamo Bay'.

'I discussed the issue of the Guantánamo detainees with Secretary Powell,' he said. 'I learnt that it was his view that it was not just Vice-President [Dick] Cheney and [Defense] Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld, but also President Bush who was involved in all of the Guantánamo decision making.'

'They simply refused to release them out of fear of political repercussions,' he continued.

Colonel Wilkerson heaped most of his criticism on the heads of of Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Cheney, saying they knew that the majority of the 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were not guilty of any crimes. >>> Mail Foreign Service | Saturday, April 10, 2010

U.S Defence Secretary Used Quotes from Bible to Brief Bush on 'Mission from God' War
MAIL Online: Former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld used 'biblical images' to deliver reports on the war in Iraq to President Bush.

With the former president known for his devout evangelical beliefs, bible passages were printed on the top secret briefs detailing the progress of the war in 2003, it has emerged.

The hand-delivered messages, which were leaked to GQ magazine by a source at the Pentagon, were said to portray the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein as being more like a ' crusade' than a modern day war.

One example had a U.S. Abrams tank in the desert and below it the biblical quote from Ephesians: 'Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.'

Another brief showed an image of Saddam under a quote from the First Epistle of Peter: 'It is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.'

The biblical remarks take on a greater significance as it is now known President Bush considered he was on a mission from God when he ordered the 2003 invasion. >>> By Mail Foreign Service | Sunday, May 17, 2009