Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote: “When asked by reporters about the first signs of a sustained and organized resistance in April 2004 following the flare-up in Fallujah [Iraq], I said [on April 20, 2004], ‘Thugs and assassins and former Saddam henchmen will not be allowed to carve out portions of that city and to oppose peace and freedom. The dead enders, threatened by Iraq’s progress to self-government, may believe they can drive the coalition out through terror and intimidation, and foment civil war among Sunnis and Shias, or block the path to Iraqi self-rule, but they’re badly mistaken.’ ”
– Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Page 674