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Video from Al Jazeera English. Text from Politico:
Foukara asked Rumsfeld whether, in hindsight, the Bush administration had sent enough troops into Iraq to secure the borders of the country, and whether that made the United States culpable in the death of innocent Iraqis. Foukara said people in the Pentagon told Rumsfeld the quantity of troops sent into Iraq was insufficient.
“You keep making assertions which are fundamentally false. No one in the Pentagon said they were not enough,” Rumsfeld said. The interview, taped in September, only went downhill from there.
Foukara pressed Rumsfeld repeatedly.
“Do you want to yell or do you want to have an interview?” Rumsfeld asked. “You’re being true to form.”
“Do you think the numbers that you went to Iraq with did absolve you from the responsibility of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed by the Coalition and those criminals that you talked about?” asked Foukara.
Rumsfeld called the question “pejorative,” said Foukara was “not being respectful” (Foukara disagreed) and was “just talking over, and over, and over again.”
“You have just disparaged me as a member of Al Jazeera. But that’s OK. Just give me a straight answer,” Foukara shot back.
Eventually, Rumsfeld called the exchange “worthless” and said, “This is not an interview. You’re haranguing.”
I'm not sure I'd have the patience or stomach to sit through much more of it. Par for the course, when Rumsfeld didn't like the questions he was being asked, he resorted to attacking the interviewer.
General Eric Shinseki might object with Rumsfeld's characterization of the Pentagon's position on troop levels.
