Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq War architect, dead at 88

Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. defense secretary who died this week at the age of 88, was a latter-day exemplar of what the journalist David Halberstam called “the best and the brightest”: a shining intellect and commanding personality who in the end was brought down by his own overconfidence.

Rumsfeld, an ultra-hawk who once declared, “I don’t do quagmires,” will likely be most remembered for his pivotal role in orchestrating the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the two-decade-long quagmire in Afghanistan.