WaPo Magazine will feature exclusive excerpts from the book "Decline and Fall: The final days of Donald Rumsfeld's troubled reign" by Pentagon correspondent Bradley Graham.

He reveals Rumsfeld was ready to leave President Bush's administration in 2006:

Around September 2006, Rumsfeld and his wife, Joyce, had discussed the prospect of his stepping down as Secretary of Defense. "We said there's no way he would stay if either the House or the Senate went Democratic because he would be the issue," Joyce recounted months later. The criticism "would have been relentless until he was gone."

Graham interviewed the former Defense Secretary eight times and also conducted interviews with close colleagues and friends. He will host a chat about the book on WaPo's site here at 12pm Monday and the book hits stands June 22nd.

Full excerpts can be found here.