BHall's Adventure's Part II - Iraq: Post 10

Al Faw Palace -- former "hunting lodge" for Hussein

chillin on the throne

There was a “ground show” at the Iraqi Air Force base today. The Air Force has been working hard the past few days to get all their planes spit shining for the presentation. Apparently, important Generals will be attending. Therefore, as a security measure, all work on the housing and hanger projects have been shut down for the day and only those attending the ground show may be on the premises. Ya know what this means?

For the first time since I've been here, I have a day off!

Now, some people got friends in low places. I just happen to have friends in high places -- Al Faw PALACE, that is. Well, ok, I have friends who have friends in high places, I didn’t actually know the Al-Faw Palace contact until Mike introduced us today, but that’s not the point of my story. The point is, I will be getting a private, behind the scenes tour of Al-Faw Palace --Saddam Hussein's "hunting lodge” that is in rankings with Buckingham Palace in terms of size.

Friends in high places pay off -- "The Chief" hooks us up with a private tour.

At first glance, it’s impressively massive and glamorous with its marble floors and columns, extravagant chandeliers, and gold trimmings.

Suddam put his signature on everything -- seen here on the top of the exterior columns

However, I stand corrected after my friend’s friend in high places, commonly known as “The Chief,” gave me the tour.

Hussein’s hunting lodge was for his own “zoo” located in a different area of the former resort. This was essentially a fenced in, personal safari; full of exotic animals so he could go hunting when it pleased him. Across the way, there’s actually a marble house that is appropriately dubbed the “Lion’s Den” because that’s where Hussein kept a lion – just because. Imagine, a zebra in the desert of Iraq, drinking out of the man-made canal, and a hippo lounging in the man-made lake. (it should also be noted, the canal and lake system here on base – which is connected to the Tigris River and Euphrates River—was filled using nearly all of Baghdad’s potable drinking water. Hussein told his people that the clean water supply was in short and he could not provide any more than one source, when the truth was that he was a germ-a-phobe and used the city’s clean water supply to fill his own lakes and canals (but even the potable water here isn't clean so I guess the joke was on him!)

Anyways, despite the exotic animals, the impressively clean canal water (or so he THOUGHT) and the shear massiveness of the structure, Al-Faw Palace was similar to the man who built it – pathetic.

Marble floors and walls – a thin, cheap façade – covering up a poor concrete and brick job.
Marble columns – thin, cheap façade. The inside of the columns were filled with broken pieces of the same brittle yellow brick used on the housing, mixed with mortar and smoothed to be a round column and then covered with a thin layer of marble.
The chandelier – plastic! (and only held up by the electrical wiring that lights it—I avoided standing directly below the big one in the entrance hall)
Stain glass windows – also plastic!
Gold trimmings – painted aluminum.

The size is the only thing that’s real, oh, that and the fact that Hussein’s initial are practically everywhere. The trimmings, the marble floors, the walls, I mean EVERYWHERE.

Pretty pathetic for a tyrant, eh? At least, that’s what my opinion is.

When I left the palace, I was still excited about the day’s enlightenment, and then I ran into Waleed, the project engineer for housing and hanger. He asked me, “Why did you not come to the ground show today? The General (of the Iraqi Air Force Base and also Saddam’s former private pilot) asked where you were (ok, so I do have at least ONE friend in high places. In fact, me and ole General Kareem have even had tea a few times together. That’s right, we’re tight) … Minister of Defense was at the show and the General wanted to introduce you to him.” Whoops.