Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld engaged in a heated exchange with an Al Jazeera reporter after he was questioned on the preparations taken before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
"You keep making assertions which are fundamentally false," said Rumsfeld in the interview.
Al Jazeera's Abderrahim Foukara responded by saying, "correct me."
"No one in the Pentagon said they [number of troops] were not enough, the president went around the room … we went back and forth with the commanders in Iraq and at CENTCOM asking them do they want additional forces and the answer was 'no,' " said Rumsfeld.
Foukara's questions led to an increasingly tense back-and-forth between the reporter and former Defense secretary.
"Now Mr. Secretary, seriously, just give me an answer," said Foukara.
"What do you mean seriously? I'm being serious. This is worthless. This is not an interview, you're haranguing, that's what you're doing," responded Rumsfeld.
This was the former secretary's first interview with the channel since 2004, according to Al Jazeera.
The full Rumsfeld interview aired Tuesday, Oct. 4., on Al Jazeera Arabic.
