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SEOUL - South Korean security authorities were ready to carry out on-board inspections of a Bahama-registered freighter after being tipped off that the ship might carry some members of Al-Qaeda, police said on Thursday. The 17,000-tonne freighter, the Athenia, which was suspected of carrying members of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group, was due to arrive at the southwestern port of Kunsan late Thursday, the police said. “We have been informed that Al Qaeda members might be hiding in the ship,” a police officer in charge of foreign affairs in Kunsan Police station told AFP. “When the ship reaches the...

While Herman Cain’s foreign policy stumbles have raised questions about his command of the facts, he says he would consult with military officials and other expert advisers to guide him through the thicket of world affairs.So who might advise a President Cain? Henry Kissinger, the 88-year-old former secretary of state, has already turned down returning to that job in a Cain administration, the candidate says.“He said he’s perfectly happy doing what he’s doing,” Mr. Cain told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.In a new video excerpt posted on the newspaper’s Web site, Mr. Cain responds to a question from editors and reporters...

A three-year government investigation has found no wrongdoing by Bush-era Pentagon officials when they gave war briefings to retired military analysts who served as TV and radio commentators. The probe by the Pentagon inspector general was a response to a 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning article in the New York Times that implied the former military officers, some of whom worked for or were defense contractors, received financial favors in return for their commentary and that they were tools in a propaganda campaign. Sources familiar with the IG’s final report said it will say officials broke no rules or laws when they...

September 11, 2011, 8:41 am The Years of Shame ... The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it. I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

After reading Krugman’s repugnant piece on 9/11, I cancelled my subscription to the New York Times this AM. Twitter via Drudge

After reading Krugman’s repugnant piece on 9/11, I cancelled my subscription to the New York Times this AM.--Donald Rumsfeld 52 minutes ago

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned that it will only be a matter of time before America endures another terrorist attack if Congress ends up blaming the defense budget for this country's red ink woes. "The Department of Defense is not what's causing the debt and the deficit. It's the entitlement programs," he told HUMAN EVENTS in an exclusive interview. "If we make that mistake, we're doomed to suffer another attack of some kind, and our intelligence will be less strong and less effective." Before legislators attempt to take out the nation's crushing debt on the Defense Department, they must...

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says President Barack Obama has come to accept much of the Bush Doctrine out of necessity, despite what he campaigned on in 2008. Rumsfeld said that Obama needed to keep the Guantanamo Bay detention center open because of national security concerns, and it was the best solution among a host of bad options. “They ended up keeping Guantanamo open not because they like it — we didn’t like it either — but they couldn’t think of a better solution,” Rumsfeld told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren on Tuesday. Rumsfeld then listed a handful of other...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney says his book, which hits bookstores Tuesday, will make heads explode. While early leaks of the manuscript have focused on revelations about rifts among officials in the Bush administration, The Daily Caller has combed through the 527 pages of his autobiography, “In My Time,” in search of nuggets you may not have known about Cheney. Here’s what we’ve learned: Cheney thought the military had taken down passenger planes on 9/11Cheney laid out reasons why he shouldn’t be VP before being pickedDonald Rumsfeld once rejected Cheney as an internCheney’s first heart attack dates back to his...

With Perry's candidacy looming, some of us international relations wonks have begun to take note of his foreign policy positions. In a 2009 debate against primary opponent Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Perry plainly stated that his faith required him to support Israel. This latter statement was bolstered by his trip to the Holy Land where he accepted the Defender of Jerusalem Award before breaking bread with then-President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As governor, Perry has suggested the deployment of American troops to Mexico to control drug violence and proceeded with the execution of a Mexican citizen, despite impassioned...

CHICAGO — A court says two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm can move forward with a lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of being responsible for U.S. forces allegedly torturing them. The ruling Monday from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago a rejects arguments that Rumsfeld should be immune from such lawsuits for work performed as a Cabinet secretary.

A federal judge says former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld can be sued personally for damages by a former U.S. military contractor who says he was tortured during nine months in prison in Iraq.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped organize Rick Perry's foreign policy and national security briefing in Austin last Wednesday, Rumsfeld's staff confirmed today. Perry's aides have been tight-lipped about the gathering, which National Review reported included former Rumsfeld aides Doug Feith, Daniel Fata, and William Luti, as well as the magazine's Andrew McCarthy and others. He (Rumsfeld) is watching the current field with interest and is particularly interested in the candidates' positions on foreign and national security policy and their prospects in winning in November 2012.

No one is immune to the probing hands of the TSA ... including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ... who got the pat-down at Chicago's O'Hare airport this afternoon ... and TMZ has the pics. (Photo at link) Sources at the airport tell TMZ ... Rummy was all smiles during the body sweep and was "very nice" throughout the procedure.

It will be tempting to accede to the White House's proposal to carve out $400 billion, if not more, from the national security budget by 2023. It would also be a grievous mistake. The critical difference between today and past eras, however, is that the proliferation of biological, chemical and even nuclear weapons means that America's margin for error is considerably more modest. Defense spending is now 19% of federal outlays and declining. This is the lowest percentage since before World War II. At 4.7% of GDP, the defense budget is dwarfed by the cost of Social Security, Medicare and...

Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. special operations forces is a major success in our country’s war against al-Qaeda. As a result of the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation program and the intelligence gained from detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a major fraction of al-Qaeda’s senior leadership has been captured or killed since 2001.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sunday questioned why the Obama administration is releasing so much information about the operation that resulted in the death of Usama bin Laden and the intelligence behind it. While Rumsfeld praised President Obama for overseeing and green-lighting the daring raid last weekend, he suggested the White House could be taking a risk in sharing the details it has with the public. "The more information that goes out about intelligence, the greater the risks to our people and the less likelihood we're going to be able to capture and/or kill some of the people who...

Say Anything Blog goes on to point out that Congressman King still stands by the position that this beginning info came from those waterboarding moments. However, even if we accept the liberal spin, Say Anything goes on to point out the following: But really, this is all a moot point. Even it we stipulate that waterboarding, or “enhanced interrogation techniques,” had nothing at all do to with KSM giving up key details which lead to bin Laden’s capture the intelligence was still gathered at facilities (Guantanamo Bay and the CIA prisons in Europe) Obama wanted shut down. No matter how...

@keithurbahn Keith Urbahn So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn. 42 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry According to the Twitter-sphere, President Obama is about to announce the death of Osama Bin Laden, in an impromptu announcement broadcast on Whitehouse.gov this Sunday night at 10:45 EST. This news is actually spreading like wildfire before the broadcast on Twitter where the first sign of confirmation came when Keith Urbahn, the Chief of Staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, tweeted “I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden.” “Osama...

Donald Rumsfeld discusses Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Movement.

See interesting video HERE... VAN SUSTEREN: Well, it seemed so unbelievable at the time, and then just two years ago, not under -- not under your watch, but under the new administration in Scotland, releasing -- one of the killers of Pan Am 103 goes home, and he's embraced by Libya, a huge hero. He's still a hero now. And it's, like, the United States just -- on that particular incident, that we've looked the other way, and you know, we've done -- we almost rewarded him. RUMSFELD: There -- I mean, old phrase that, in fact, I talk about...

Washington - Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said today that if Gadhafi remains in power in Libya, it will damage the prestige of the United States. He compared the possible scenario of Gadhafi staying in power in Tripoli to the U.S. and coalition forces not removing Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, though he refused to take a firm stand on whether U.S. military action in Libya was the correct move for the Obama administration. In an exclusive interview on "This Week" with ABC News' Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper, Rumsfeld said, "the fact is we are

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used the word “confusion” six times in an interview on ABC News’ ‘This Week’ to describe the United Nations-backed military effort in Libya. “The first thing you have to do,” Rumsfeld told ABC News’ “is recognize…the mission has to determine the coalition. The coalition ought not determine the mission.” “If you go into something with confusion and ambiguity about what the mission is – and we’ve heard four or five different explanations about why we’re there – and that is the root of the problem. The confusion that comes from that.” “Confusion about what...

Mrs. Donald Rumsfeld joined the first responders from 9/11 to christen the amphibious transport dock ship Arlington (LPD 24) at Northrop Grumman shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The ship is named for the city of Arlington, Virginia, honoring the 184 victims in the air and on the ground who lost their lives when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The Arlington also honors the military and civilian employees, emergency, fire and rescue personnel of Arlington County and surrounding communities who provided the critical assistance after the attack. Ship sponsor Joyce Rumsfeld, wife of former Secretary...

Rumsfeld and O’Reilly in shootout over Iraq War. On his tour to promote his new book, “Known and Unknown,” and also defend his handling of the Iraq War, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made an appearance on the O’Reilly Factor last night. In a wide-ranging interview that covered Afghanistan, the Secretary’s experiences, and the Iraq War, Rumsfeld did his best to defend his involvement and planning with regards to Iraq, but O’Reilly was having none of it. The Factor host essentially gave Rumsfeld hell on the issue of his apparent failure to be more forthcoming with the American public...

View Video at source link.

Bob Woodward is “flat-out disgusted” with Donald Rumsfeld’s memoir. “Rumsfeld's memoir is one big clean-up job, a brazen effort to shift blame to others -- including President Bush -- distort history, ignore the record or simply avoid discussing matters that cannot be airbrushed away,” Woodward writes on Tom Ricks’s Best Defense blog. “It is a travesty, and I think the rewrite job won't wash.”

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has spent nearly his entire life around powerful Republican politicians. So imagine his surprise when he learned that his birth certificate bears the John Hancock of one of the 20th century’s most powerful Democrats: the late Chicago mayor and Democratic Party boss Richard J. Daley. posted using frpa

The Justice Department under President Barack Obama has quietly dropped its legal representation of more than a dozen Bush-era Pentagon and administration officials - including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and aide Paul Wolfowitz - in a lawsuit by Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla, who spent years behind bars without charges in conditions his lawyers compare to torture. Charles Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that the government has agreed to retain private lawyers for the officials, at a cost of up to $200 per hour. Miller said “conflicts concerns” prompted the decision. He did not elaborate. One private...

Donald Rumsfeld has served as White House chief of staff and twice as secretary of Defense, the youngest and the oldest man ever to hold the post. He has been a trusted diplomatic envoy and successful private sector executive. Throughout it all — indeed, for most of his 78 years — he has borne with courage and almost preternatural fortitude the burden of always being the smartest guy in the room....

On Feb. 18, a federal judge in South Carolina on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit brought by an American citizen who said he was illegally detained and tortured in a military jail after being convicted of terrorism conspiracy.

Rumsfeld blasts Obama's world image Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld disputes the notion that President Barack Obama has made America more popular around the globe than it was under his former boss, President George W. Bush. Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" by host Candy Crowley whether the U.S. is looked at differently than under his tenure, Rumsfeld replied, “I don't think there's data that supports that.” "He has made a practice of trying to apologize for America," Rumsfeld said of Obama. "I personally am proud of America” Rumsfeld also downplayed Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. “He had not accomplished...

A landmark lawsuit filed Tuesday against Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, alleges that the military's repeated failures to take action in rape cases created a culture where violence against women was tolerated, violating the plaintiffs’ Constitutional rights. “There are three types of women in the Army,” says Rebecca Havrilla, a former sergeant and explosive-ordnance-disposal technician. “Bitch, dyke, and whore.” During the four years that Havrilla was on active duty, she was called all three—by fellow soldiers, team leaders, even unit commanders. Once, during a sexual-assault prevention training, the 28-year-old South Carolina native claims, she watched a...

Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who served at the Pentagon under two Republican presidents, says the “time has come” time for gays and lesbians to serve openly in the US military. Two months after President Obama signed a law that will lead to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Rumsfeld told ABC News Radio that the nation is ready for open service. “First of all, we know that gays and lesbians have been serving in the military for decades with honorable service,” Rumsfeld said. “We know that [repeal of a ban on gays serving openly] is an idea whose...

Dick Cheney just popped up here at CPAC to introduce his old pal and Bush administration colleague Donald Rumsfeld. Fans of Ron Paul turned what should have been a friendly moment before an audience of fellow conservatives into a screaming match and protest action that resembled what a Cheney-Rumsfeld hug at the Netroots Nation convention might look like. Rumsfeld is being given CPAC's "Defender Of The Constitution" award, a concept that apparently rankled Paul supporters in the crowd. Many of them got up and walked out en masse at the mention of Rumsfeld, though some stayed behind in the conference...

Several pro-government Egyptian newspapers and media outlets are attacking the United States following the Bush administration's decision not to increase financial aid to the North African nation. The Egyptian press has attacked U.S. policy and policymakers in the past, usually at low points in the oft-rocky relationship between Washington and Cairo. But the new attacks are particularly vitriolic and have even gone so far as to compare some U.S. officials to Nazi Germany's Third Reich. "[Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld is a new Hitler in America," wrote columnist Kamal Abd Al-Raouf for the government weekly Akhbar Al-Yaum last week, predicting the...

VIDEO HERE.

Former US secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld revealed Tuesday that Saddam Hussein had a $60 million bounty on his daughters' head and also targeted ex-president George W. Bush's two daughters. "I was concerned," Rumsfeld told ABC's "Good Morning America" in his first live television interview since leaving office over four years ago. "Of course, the president and his family had secret service protection. My family did not. And it was a somewhat awkward moment in the meeting," he added in describing a 2003 national security meeting when he was told of the plot. Rumsfeld, who has two daughters and a...

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has released his papers online - literally thousands of records, many of them previously classified - of memos and other documents written by Rumsfeld himself and others going back as far as the 1960's. The online archive at Rumsfeld.com includes documents from the Nixon, Ford, and Bush II administrations, and also documents from his time in the private sector. It looks like a pretty cool resource, and it's word search-able too. I linked above to just one example; a document written by William Rehnquist, from when Rehnquist worked in the Nixon administration in 1969....

The US war effort in Iraq would have been a "disastrous defeat" if president George W. Bush had left Donald Rumsfeld in charge of the Defence Department, John McCain says. The former Republican presidential candidate hit back yesterday over unflattering comments made by Mr Rumsfeld in his new autobiography, Known and Unknown. Reviving a feud between the pair, Mr Rumsfeld describes Senator McCain in his book as "a man with a hair-trigger temper and a propensity to fashion and shift his positions to appeal to the media".

Long-awaited, from-the-hip memoir offers raw, unvarnished look at eight decades of history "If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much." So declares former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his news book 'KNOWN AND UNKNOWN'. In the book, which streets next week, Rumsfeld details his half-century career in and around the ring -- and West Wing. It is based not only on Rumsfeld's memory but also on hundreds of previously unreleased documents from throughout his career. Now only the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal: # Rumsfeld warned in 2001 of Afghan “swamp” and “not to make a career...

WASHINGTON – If the memoir of Donald Rumsfeld, among the most powerful and controversial secretaries of defense, catches on with readers and critics, he could cite one of his many "Rumsfeld's Rules": "The harder I work, the luckier I am." When Rumsfeld began thinking about his book, "Known and Unknown," he imagined a more typical Washington release: a quick, impressionistic story based on whatever he recalled. Instead, he and a team of six aides worked four years on what became a 700-page narrative, with an additional 100-plus pages of end notes. Dozens of books were consulted and thousands of documents...

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Tweeted this message today comparing Tucson's events and the mood around the JFK assassination: "Joyce & I are praying for all those felled by evil in Tucson. We saw a similar rush to judgment w/o facts in Dallas in 1963."

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, actor Rainn Wilson and ex-Playboy executive Christie Hefner are among the entering class in New Trier Township High School's alumni Hall of Honor awards. Among those not making the cut were actress Ann-Margaret and Chicago mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel. The honorees were said to embody the Winnetka school's mission "to commit minds to inquiry, hearts to compassion and lives to the service of humanity."

WASHINGTON -Fending off demands that he resign over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress in 2004 that he had found a legal way to compensate Iraqi detainees who suffered "grievous and brutal abuse and cruelty at the hands of a few members of the United States armed forces." "It's the right thing to do," Rumsfeld said. "And it is my intention to see that we do." Six years later, the U.S. Army is unable to document a single payment for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. Nor can the more than 250 Iraqis or their...

Washington (CNN) -- The Department of Defense recently purchased and destroyed thousands of copies of an Army Reserve officer's memoir in an effort to safeguard state secrets, a spokeswoman said Saturday. "DoD decided to purchase copies of the first printing because they contained information which could cause damage to national security," Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. April Cunningham said. In a statement to CNN, Cunningham said defense officials observed the September 20 destruction of about 9,500 copies of Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer's new memoir "Operation Dark Heart." Shaffer says he was notified Friday about the Pentagon's purchase. "The whole...

If there was any doubt that Donald Rumsfeld's book would be frank-and-candid narrative of what, in his telling, really happened, here are a few details about what promises to be a tell-all in the tradition of the Washington memoir. First, see above: The dust jacket depicts a fleece-wearing Rummy at his get-away in Taos, a signal that he's detached from the Beltway and has nothing to lose. Then there is the title, "Known and Unknown," a play on his famous formulation about "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns." That's shorthand for suggesting he's going to reveal more than a few...

Former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld made remarks at a Pentagon ceremony today unveiling his portrait. Here is some of what he said: Some might ask how our country has endured? Well, it should be no mystery. It is because we are a free people, blessed with a free political and a free economic system – Where we are: free to think and act; to believe and protest; to vote and petition; and, yes free to succeed, to fail, and to start again. The night satellite image of the Korean Peninsula, my favorite as many of you know well, captured many...

WASHINGTON, June 25, 2010 – America exists and prospers because members of the U.S. armed forces step forward and protect it, former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said here today. "In a very real sense,” he said, “America is their gift to the future." Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, right, addresses the audience while former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld looks on during Rumsfeld's portrait unveiling ceremony at the Pentagon, June 25, 2010. DoD photo by Cherie Cullen  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “This country – which has treated me so well – exists and prospers because the members...

Americans who care about our country should be very skeptical of the administration's line that no military dissent--not even from retirees--is ever permissible. As a nation, we need to ask ourselves some very uncomfortable questions about the rise of hyper-political defense secretaries, the politicization of military affairs by both Republicans and Democrats, the isolation of the president from frank military advice and civilian interference in the smallest details of combat operations. Each of these men played by the rules, retiring before speaking out. None prejudiced good order. Not one stands to profit from his courage (quite the contrary).