Donald Rumsfeld has revealed that Saddam Hussein took out a $60million hit on his daughters in revenge for the slaying of his two sons.
The ex-U.S. Secretary of Defense said that the former Iraqi dictator offered the bounty to anybody who brought him both girls' heads.
He was given the warning in a October 2003 meeting by which time U.S. forces had killed Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay and his 14-year-old grandson Mustapha.
A similar threat was made to George W Bush's two daughters Jenna and Barbara, but the President had Secret Service protection which made him feel safer.
Mr Rumsfeld and his family had no such privilege, sparking a rather uncomfortable pause in the National Security Council meeting.
'Of course the President and his family had secret service protection.
'My family did not. And it was a somewhat awkward moment in the meeting,' he told ABC's Good Morning America.
'I believe (former CIA head) George Tenet said: "You have to take it seriously" because we had killed Saddam Husein's sons and one ought not to be surprised that that kind of activity was being generated in Iraq.
'There was not much I could do, my children did not have protection. I felt concerned but I felt realistic.
'There are certain things that happen in life that one cannot do much about.
'I made a comment like "Thank you" or something and President Bush looked me in the eye and said "You better take this seriously".
'And of course, I did take it seriously. But I was also realistic that there was not much one could do about that.'
Mr Rumsfeld's comments came as part of a promotion push to accompany his new memoirs Known and Unknown which detail his time in office until he retired in December 2006.
He has already criticised former colleagues - notably national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell - who worked alongside him following the terror attacks of 9/11.
And he has confessed that sending in more troops after the Iraq Invasion was probably 'the most important failure' of the war.
Speaking to ABC in his first live interview on the memoirs, he also admitted that his failure to convince Mr Bush to accept his resignation following the Abu Ghraib scandal was another major mistake.
He said the photos of prisoner abuse were a 'damaging distraction' that put a 'stain' on the United States.
'I stepped up and told the president I thought I should resign. And I think probably he and the military and the Pentagon and the country would've been better off if I had,' he said.
Mr Rumsfeld's memoir draws upon hundreds of previously classified and never before released documents, from his time as defence secretary under George W Bush and Gerald Ford, his years in the Nixon administration and his three terms as an Illinois congressman.
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