Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s interview with Barbara Walters of ABC News was aired on February 7, 2011. Rumsfeld “admitted his biggest error during his tenure under Bush was his failure to convince the president to accept his resignation in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal [in Iraq]. ‘That was such a stain on our country. To think that people in our custody were treated in that disgusting and perverted and ghastly way–unacceptable way… And so I stepped up and told the president I thought I should resign. And I think probably he and the military and the Pentagon and the country would’ve been better off if I had,’ he said.”
– Olivia Hampton, “Rumsfeld Regrets: Not Quitting After Abu Ghraib,” Agence France-Presse, Feb. 7, 2011