No stranger to the region, Rumsfeld served as Middle East envoy under President Reagan. Here Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Rumsfeld in Baghdad on December 20, 1983.

Less than one month after the September 11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld embarked on a coalition building trip to the Middle East, his first visit to the region while serving as Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld notes in his 2011 memoir Known and Unknown that at the time of his whirlwind October 3-5 visit to Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Uzbekistan, and Turkey, he knew that CENTCOM commander General Tommy Franks was planning to insert special operations teams into Afghanistan on the nights of October 6 and 7.¹ Rumsfeld’s tour was therefore intended to shore up support for the U.S.’ nascent war on terror from the countries surrounding Afghanistan, and to assuage fears that U.S. military action in the region would be a “flash…