Washington ? Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the public face of an unpopular war, bid farewell to the Pentagon on Friday in a splashy sendoff featuring lavish praise from President Bush. Rumsfeld defended to the end the mission that led to his ouster.

Combative to the last, Rumsfeld took a slap at advocates of withdrawing U.S. troops from the war, now in its fourth year with more than 2,900 Americans dead.

“It may well be comforting to some to consider graceful exits from the agonies and, indeed, the ugliness of combat,” Rumsfeld said, choking up slightly as he capped a roster of speakers at his pomp-filled goodbye ceremony. “But the enemy thinks differently.”

Rumsfeld’s service to the country over five decades and for four presidents was saluted in an hourlong honor review.

A drum roll marked the ceremonial entrance of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld to a grassy field outside the Pentagon. Troops fired a cannon salute of 19 rounds.

On Monday, Robert Gates takes over from Rumsfeld, who will be just 10 days shy of surpassing Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara as the longest-serving Pentagon chief ever.

Far from apologizing for the Iraq war that was the undoing of Rumsfeld – as well as Republican control of Congress and Bush’s approval ratings – speakers heralded both the war and the secretary’s leadership.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld smiles as President Bush takes his hand Friday during a farewell ceremony for Rumsfeld at the Pentagon.

Bush applauded Rumsfeld for the invasion that drove Saddam Hussein from power in just 21 days and for seeing the Iraqi people through the resumption of sovereignty, two elections, the adoption of a constitution and the seating of a new government. There was no mention of the potent anti-American insurgency that arose after the invasion, nor of the spiraling sectarian fighting that has more recently brought increased bloodshed.

“On his watch, the United States military helped the Iraqi people establish a constitutional democracy in the heart of the Middle East, a watershed event in the story of freedom,” said Bush, who hugged Rumsfeld. “This man knows how to lead, and he did. And the country is better off for it.”