Rumsfeld personally advanced the de-baathification directive - the lynchpin of the clusterfuckery - all on his own, and he certainly would have known to expect the 'unexpected' results to be similar to de-nazification. This was absolutely his choice. Another point you have (unintentionally?) brought up is the dignified resignation option. While it is often a naive, self-serving gesture, we can reasonably imagine that the Defense Secretary publicly resigning over opposition to a war during the public consideration of that war, might have had some effect on whether that war was started. I want to like him too, with his grandfatherly demeanor and genuine funnyness ("My god, were there so many vases?!") but, come on.

I don't think you remember correctly:

> In the first emergency meeting of the National Security Council on the day of the attacks, Rumsfeld asked, "Why shouldn't we go against Iraq, not just al-Qaeda?" with his deputy Paul Wolfowitz adding that Iraq was a "brittle, oppressive regime that might break easily—it was doable," and, according to John Kampfner, "from that moment on, he and Wolfowitz used every available opportunity to press the case."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Rumsfeld#Military_decis...

As history, this is completely incorrect, but beyond that, if you don’t believe in the mission of the President in committing an act of war, you have a responsibility to resign, and it can’t be bracketed as “bad ethics”.

Anyway, another historical point besides what the other commenters have said is that Rumsfeld believed in “transformation” which meant you could do more with less in modern war. He was totally wrong about it.

It wasn’t his fault Turkey didn’t let the US attack from the north, but other than that, the fuck up is his responsibility, among others.