WASHINGTON, Feb 4: Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday he twice offered his resignation to US President George Bush over the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, but both times was asked to stay in the job.

Photographs of soldiers humiliating and physically abusing prisoners at the jail on the outskirts of Baghdad surfaced last April, triggering global condemnation and calls by political opponents for Mr Rumsfeld to quit.

"I submitted my resignation to President Bush twice during that period and told him that ... I felt that he ought to make the decision as to whether or not I stayed on. And he made that decision and said he did want me to stay on," Mr Rumsfeld said.

He was speaking in an interview with CNN's "Larry King Live" program and a transcript was released in advance of its broadcast on Thursday evening. On May 5 last year, a week after CBS broadcast the first Abu Ghraib pictures, White House aides said that Mr Bush had complained to Mr Rumsfeld that the secretary had failed to alert him fully to the details of the scandal. But Mr Bush the next day told reporters: "Secretary Rumsfeld has been the secretary during two wars and he's an important part of my cabinet and he'll stay in my cabinet."

During testimony before Congress on May 7, Mr Rumsfeld said: "These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defence, I am accountable for them. I take full responsibility."

At the same time, Mr Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials attributed the abuse to misconduct by low-ranking soldiers, several of whom have now pleaded guilty or been convicted in military courts.

THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT: In his CNN interview, Mr Rumsfeld said: "What was going on in the midnight shift in Abu Ghraib prison halfway across the world is something that clearly someone in Washington can't manage or deal with. I have no regrets," Mr Rumsfeld said.