Donald H Rumsfeld

For much of the last six years, a question-and-answer session with Donald H. Rumsfeld was the best show in town. The combative Defense secretary's bristling self-assurance made the Pentagon Briefing Room one of the hottest seats in Washington. The Bush administration's erstwhile rock star delivered his last major performance Friday, as feisty and quotable as when he began.

Donald H. Rumsfeld used his farewell address as Defense secretary Friday to warn against a weakening of American will in Iraq, saying a withdrawal of troops may provide short-term relief from U.S. casualties but would only embolden extremist enemies. Joined by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney at a Pentagon ceremony, Rumsfeld rejected criticism of his conduct of the war, saying a failure to project military strength would only make the U.S. more vulnerable.

If there was any question that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates would go to almost any length to demonstrate he was the anti-Rumsfeld, he dispelled it Friday. In his first-ever Pentagon news conference, Gates' manner and method could not have been more different than those of his controversial predecessor -- starting with the room. Donald H. Rumsfeld made the Pentagon briefing room so much his own, Gates has evidently decided he has no intention of using it.

When President Bush went to the Pentagon in December to discuss his new war strategy with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld scheduled the meeting for his own conference room. The chiefs rejected Rumsfeld's plan for the conference. Instead, according to a military source briefed on the meeting, they sent word that they would be in "the Tank," the Joint Chiefs' own secret briefing room.

Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld distanced himself Wednesday from the Army's handling of Cpl. Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire in Afghanistan, and denied allegations that the Bush administration covered up what actually happened so that it could use the former NFL star's death to rally public support. "Of course there's a difference between error and coverup," Rumsfeld told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has held several hearings on the case.

The head of the British army during the Iraq invasion described former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's approach as "intellectually bankrupt," according to comments published Saturday. Gen. Mike Jackson, who retired in August 2006 as chief of the general staff, says in his autobiography that Rumsfeld was "one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq," according to excerpts published by the Daily Telegraph.

In a series of internal musings and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote of the need to "keep elevating the threat," "link Iraq to Iran" and develop "bumper sticker statements" to rally public support for an increasingly unpopular war. The memos, often referred to as "snowflakes," shed light on Rumsfeld's brusque management style and on his efforts to address key challenges during his tenure as Pentagon chief.

L. Paul Bremer III, who led the U.S. civilian occupation authority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, said he had urged President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to increase postwar troop strength in the country, but his pleas were ignored. In an interview on NBC Television broadcast Sunday night, Bremer said he sent a memo to Rumsfeld suggesting that half a million soldiers would be needed, three times the number deployed by the Bush administration.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld turned down a request in May 2004 by L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. diplomat governing Iraq at the time, for hundreds of thousands more American troops during a particularly violent period in the country, the Pentagon acknowledged Monday. Bremer, who served as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority for 13 months after Saddam Hussein was toppled, said in an NBC interview that he wrote a memo in May 2004 to Rumsfeld suggesting that about 500,000 U.S.

Washington intends to deepen its military and counter-terrorism ties with Algeria, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said during a stopover in Algiers. Rumsfeld avoided saying whether relations with Algeria were dependent on political reforms. An Islamist uprising that began after authorities canceled legislative elections in 1992 has killed more than 150,000 people.