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Quotes from Bureaucracy to Battlefield Speech — Donald Rumsfeld

1932–2021 United States

← All quotes by Donald Rumsfeld

5 quotes

It's going to be hard. There will be rough times. But it's also the best part of life to be engaged in doing something worthwhile.

Bureaucracy to Battlefield Speech (2001)

A new idea ignored may be the next threat overlooked. A person employed in a redundant task is one who could be countering terrorism or nuclear proliferation.

Bureaucracy to Battlefield Speech (2001)

According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We cannot share information from floor to floor in this building because it's stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible.

Bureaucracy to Battlefield Speech (2001)

Some might ask, how in the world could the Secretary of Defense attack the Pentagon in front of its people? To them I reply, Today, I have no desire to attack the Pentagon; I want to liberate it. We need to save it from itself.

Bureaucracy to Battlefield Speech (2001)

The adversary is closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy. Not the people, but the processes. Not the civilians, but the systems. Not the men and women in uniform, but the uniformity of thought and action that we too often impose on them.

Bureaucracy to Battlefield Speech (2001)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Donald Rumsfeld (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.