Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is dead. The Republican politician died in the circle of his family in Taos in the US state of New Mexico, the family said in a statement on Wednesday (local time). Rumsfeld turned 88 years old.
The Republican was Pentagon chief from 2001 to 2006 under then-President George W. Bush and chief planner of the military operation in Iraq aimed at overthrowing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. After three and a half years, however, the fighting was deadlocked, and Bush dismissed Rumsfeld. Under President Gerald Ford, Rumsfeld was the youngest Secretary of Defense in U.S. history from 1975 to 1977-the oldest in Bush’s cabinet at the time.
His second term was marked by the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the US Department of Defense in Washington on September 11, 2001, which triggered the US operation in Afghanistan. The planner behind the attacks, Osama Bin Laden, could not overthrow the US forces during his tenure.
Controversial Minister
Rumsfeld had many critics. Former U.S. Senator John McCain said in 2007 about his party colleague that he would “go down in history as one of the worst defense ministers ever.”
In 2008, the U.S. Senate also gave Rumsfeld joint responsibility for human rights violations in U.S. detention camps. In particular, the scandal surrounding the Abu Ghuraib prison in Iraq put Rumsfeld in distress. Rumsfeld was also accused of having contributed to the subsequent mistreatment of suspected terrorists in the US prison camp Guantanamo in Cuba in 2002 by approving “aggressive interrogation techniques”. After his political career ended, Rumsfeld moved to the private sector.
