That war, costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, has outlasted Rumsfeld, with Joe Biden due to withdraw US troops on September 11, the 20th anniversary of the original attacks.
Rumsfeld’s face became familiar to millions of TV viewers during press briefings on the conflict. At one he famously said: “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 ...
The terrorist organization was responsible for the attacks in which hijacked passenger jets were flown into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, while one crashed in a field en route to Washington, killing a total of almost 3,000 people on September 11, 2001.
Rumsfeld, often described as gruff and confrontational, was at the Pentagon on 9/11 and seen on film helping survivors out of the building. He played a prominent role in Bush’s decision to invade Afghanistan to hunt down al-Qaida.
He made a brief and dismal run for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination but was his second spell as Pentagon chief, under Bush, that would see him become the focus of intense liberal criticism.
The former naval pilot’s career spanned decades of American political history. Rumsfeld was chief of staff to President Gerald Ford in the mid-1970s, serving alongside future vice-president Dick Cheney, then became defense secretary.
Former president George W Bush, whom he served for six years, led tributes by calling him “a man of intelligence, integrity, and almost inexhaustible energy”, adding that “he never paled before tough decisions, and never flinched from responsibility”.
Rumsfeld passed away surrounded by his family in Taos, New Mexico, the family said in a statement on Wednesday.
Donald Rumsfeld, a two-time US defense secretary who was a key architect of America’s bitterly divisive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has died at the age of 88.
Republican who served under Gerald Ford and George W Bush was involved in decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq
“I made sure the words ‘Never again’ were on there,” he said. “Never again will any of my children have to go through something like this. Never again will anybody try to take our children away. Never again.”
“I’m very lucky that I found a woman that cares for me. And I have my children behind me, who want to make sure that I’m okay.”
“I thought I dealt with it and I healed from it. But then every night I have nightmares... The priests are chasing after me again. Even if you put them in jail, it’s not going to stop.”
Amid growing calls for a papal apology over the Catholic church’s role in the schools, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) said on Wednesday that Pope Francis had agreed to meet Indigenous survivors at the Vatican. For Kruger, justice and healing remain elusive.
In 2000, the building was reopened as the St Eugene Resort, a golf course and casino operated by the Ktunaxa community of ʔAq’am, close to Cranbrook.
“We need to know who died, we need to know how they died, we need to know who was responsible for their deaths or for their care at the time that they died,” Murray Sinclair, former head of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, previously told the Guardian. “We need to know ...
Records list the deaths of 19 students at the institution, highlighting the gap between official figures and what many believe is a vast undercounting of the deceased.
The Oblates have pledged to release all records associated with the schools, but have also cited privacy concerns as a hurdle.