Donald Rumsfeld: Former secretary of defense dies at 88 - CNNPolitics
Donald Rumsfeld, former secretary of defense, dies at 88
CNN)
Donald Rumsfeld, the acerbic architect of the Iraq war and a master Washington power player who served as US secretary of defense for two presidents, has died at the age of 88.
The pugnacious businessman, bureaucrat and former lawmaker helped drag victims out of the burning Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The al Qaeda attacks heralded the War on Terror and years of foreign entanglements that he directed and that ultimately ended his political career when they went sour.
Rumsfeld died surrounded by his family in "his beloved Taos, New Mexico," according to a family statement. No cause of death was immediately provided.
A long-time associate of former Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld made a shock return to the Cabinet when he was named to run the Pentagon by the inexperienced new
President George W. Bush, who took office in January 2001.
He had previously served in the role for
President Gerald Ford in the 1970s and history will remember him as the youngest and the second-oldest defense secretary.
