Rumsfeld: I should have quit after Abu Ghraib
Former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld says in a new memoir that his biggest regret was not stepping down after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, US media reported Thursday. In his book, Rumsfeld -- a lightning rod for criticism during his long tenure at the Pentagon -- defends his handling of the Iraq war and makes no apologies for his major policy decisions, according to advance copies obtained by the New York Times and the Washington Post. But he said he should have forced then president George W. Bush to accept his resignation over the revelations of abuse by US military guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "Abu Ghraib and its follow-on effects, including the continued drum-beat of 'torture' maintained by partisan critics of the war and the president, became a damaging distraction," Rumsfeld writes.
[Editor's Comment:] He should have regretted not quitting before Abu Ghraib, meaning he (correctly) would have admitted responsibility for the atrocities and felt regret for what he did. Rumsfeld however does not feel responsible for the barbarities that he in fact unleashed upon Iraqis. His only concern was that the scandal was a damaging "distraction" (presumably from the important task of eliminating Iraqi resistance to the noble Imperial Agenda). -This is the way of psychopaths.