Rumsfeld makes emotional farewell

With 10 days left in office, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld bade a sometimes emotional farewell to Pentagon employees today, saying the single worst day of his nearly six years in office was in spring 2004 when he learned of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse committed by US troops in Iraq.

Rumsfeld choked up briefly while recalling a woman in Alaska giving him a bracelet last August as a reminder of the sacrifices by soldiers of the Army’s 172nd Stryker Brigade, whose year-long tour in Iraq was extended by four months to help try to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad.