Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, brought Gen. Peter Schoomaker out of retirement to be Army chief of staff.

Special Operations Command, and Rumsfeld wanted to reorient the Army to emphasize special operations.

In the 1991 Gulf War, Burkle was senior medical officer at the largest U.S. field medical facility since World War II. More than a decade later, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he served briefly as that nation’s interim health minister, surviving an assassination attempt before being fired by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

But well before the invasion, George W. Bush had ordered humanitarian aid shifted from the State Department, where it had always previously been, to the Defense Department under Rumsfeld.

After that power grab — behind the back of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell — Rumsfeld replaced everyone on Burkle’s team with military personnel, leaving him little more than a figurehead.