Donald Henry Rumsfeld was an American politician,government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford,and again from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He was both the youngest and the oldest secretary of defense. Additionally,Rumsfeld was a four-term U.S. Congressman from Illinois (1963–1969),director of the Office of Economic Opportunity (1969–1970),counselor to the president (1969–1973),the U.S. Representative to NATO (1973–1974),and the White House Chief of Staff (1974–1975). Between his terms as secretary of defense,he served as the CEO and chairman of several companies.
Douglas Jay Feith served as the under secretary of Defense for Policy for United States president George W. Bush,from July 2001 until August 2005. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute,a conservative think tank.
The Office of Special Plans (OSP),which existed from September 2002 to June 2003,was a Pentagon unit created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith,and headed by Feith,as charged by then–United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,to supply senior George W. Bush administration officials with raw intelligence pertaining to Iraq. A similar unit,called the Iranian Directorate,was created several years later,in 2006,to deal with intelligence on Iran.
Academi,formerly known as Blackwater,is an American private military contractor founded on December 26,1996,by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. It was renamed Xe Services in 2009,and was again renamed to Academi in 2011,after it was acquired by a group of private investors. In 2014,Academi merged with Triple Canopy to form Constellis Holdings.
William Howard Taft IV is an American diplomat and attorney who has served in the United States government under several Republican administrations. He is a son of William Howard Taft III and a great-grandson of President William Howard Taft.
James Norman Mattis is an American military veteran who served as the 26th United States secretary of defense from 2017 to 2019. A retired Marine Corps four-star general,he commanded forces in the Persian Gulf War,the War in Afghanistan,and the Iraq War.
David Michael Satterfield is an American diplomat and ambassador,who has served extensively in the Middle East,including the Persian Gulf area,Lebanon,and Iraq. He later served as a senior advisor on Iraq for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and was director general of the Multinational Force and Observers,the peacekeeping force for the Sinai Peninsula from June 2009 until August 2017. He was chargéd'affaires to Egypt from August 2013 to January 2014 and was subsequently Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Libya. From September 2017 to June 2019 he served as the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs,and was confirmed as U.S. ambassador to Turkey on June 27,2019.
John Charles Rood is an American national security adviser and former government official who served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from January 2018 to February 2020. Before that,he was Senior Vice President of Lockheed Martin where he oversaw international business. He also served as vice president for Domestic Business Development at Lockheed Martin and he was a vice president at the Raytheon Company.
Erik Dean Prince is an American businessman,former U.S. Navy SEAL officer,and the founder of the private military company Blackwater. He served as Blackwater's CEO until 2009 and as its chairman until its sale to a group of investors in 2010. Prince heads the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group and was chairman of the Hong Kong-listed Frontier Services Group until 2021. Prince is the son of engineer and businessman Edgar Prince,and the brother of former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
Jeffrey D. "J.D." Gordon is an American communications and foreign policy adviser,who served as a Pentagon spokesman during the George W. Bush Administration and later a national security adviser to Donald Trump. Gordon is a retired United States Navy officer who was a senior adviser to numerous prominent Republican political figures. Gordon has also been a television commentator and columnist with various media outlets including One America News Network,Fox News,Sky News,The Daily Caller,USA Today,The Hill,The Washington Times and others. Gordon founded Protect America Today,a national security–themed Super PAC in February 2012.
The Nisour Square massacre occurred on September 16,2007,when employees of Blackwater Security Consulting,a private military company contracted by the US government to provide security services in Iraq,shot at Iraqi civilians,killing 17 and injuring 20 in Nisour Square,Baghdad,while escorting a U.S. embassy convoy. The killings outraged Iraqis and strained relations between Iraq and the United States. In 2014,four Blackwater employees were tried and convicted in U.S. federal court;one of murder,and the other three of manslaughter and firearms charges;all four convicted were controversially pardoned by President Donald Trump in December 2020. U.N. experts said the pardons "violate U.S. obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level”.
Douglas Abbott Macgregor is a retired U.S. Army colonel,government official,author,consultant,and political commentator. He was a leader in an early tank battle in the Gulf War and was a top planner in the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. His 1997 book Breaking the Phalanx argued for radical reforms inside the Army. His thinking contributed to US strategy in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Joseph Francis Dunford Jr. is a retired United States Marine Corps general who served as the 19th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1,2015 to September 30,2019. He was the 36th commandant of the Marine Corps. Dunford is the first Marine Corps officer to serve in four different four-star positions;the others include commander of the International Security Assistance Force and United States Forces –Afghanistan from February 2013 to August 2014,and as the thirty-second assistant commandant of the Marine Corps from October 23,2010 to December 15,2012. He has commanded several units,including the 5th Marine Regiment during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
John Joseph Sullivan is an American attorney and government official who served as the United States Ambassador to Russia from 2020 to 2022,and who previously served as the 19th United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2017 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party,Sullivan served as Acting United States Secretary of State from April 1,2018,to April 26,2018,following President Donald Trump's dismissal of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on March 13,2018,until Tillerson's official successor,Mike Pompeo,was sworn in. Tillerson did not officially leave office until March 31,2018. Sullivan,however,was delegated all responsibilities of the Secretary of State beginning March 13.
Robert Story Karem is an American policy advisor and government official who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Department of Defense.
George Demetrios Papadopoulos is an author and former member of the foreign policy advisory panel to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. On October 5,2017,Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to a felony charge of making false statements to FBI agents about the timing and the possible significance of his contacts in 2016 relating to U.S.–Russia relations and the Trump presidential campaign. In 2018,he served twelve days in federal prison,then was placed on a 12-month supervised release. During his supervised release from prison,he participated in the filming of a still-unreleased docuseries. In March 2019,Papadopoulos released his book,Deep State Target:How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump. He was pardoned by Trump in December 2020.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 is a United States federal law which specifies the budget,expenditures and policies of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for Fiscal Year 2018. Analogous NDAAs have been passed in previous and subsequent years.
In April and May 2020,United States President Donald Trump dismissed the inspectors general (IGs) of five cabinet departments in the space of six weeks. The inspectors general removed were Michael K. Atkinson,Intelligence,on April 3;Glenn Fine (acting),Defense,April 7;Christi Grimm (acting),Health and Human Services,May 1;Mitch Behm (acting),Transportation,May 15;and Steve Linick,State,May 15. In four of the cases the announcement was made late on a Friday night in a classic Friday news dump. In several cases the fired IGs had taken an action which Trump disliked,so that the dismissals were widely described as retaliation. In two other cases,questions were raised about whether the dismissals related to ongoing IG investigations into the conduct of the cabinet secretary in charge of that department. The cumulative firings were often described as a "purge" or as a "war on watchdogs".
Christopher Charles Miller is an American retired United States Army Special Forces colonel who served as acting United States secretary of defense from November 9,2020,to January 20,2021. He previously served as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center from August 10 to November 9,2020. Before his civilian service in the Department of Defense,Miller was a Green Beret,commanding 5th Special Forces Group in Iraq and Afghanistan,and later spent time as a defense contractor.
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United States Navy