Al Faw Palace

Al Faw Palace, Baghdad

Situated in the Southwest corner of Baghdad, sandwiched between the city and the airport, is a vast complex of buildings built by the Iraqi government. But these were no mere ministries, no place where the average Iraqi could visit and see his government in action. No, this place, known as the Abu Ghraib Palace complex (not to be confused with the prison) was restricted to an elite, the plundercrats of Ba'athist Iraq.

It was once a stunning Dictator's Disneyland. And today, it is the headquarters of the Multi-National Forces-Iraq.

It was ironic that I left my work at the ornate Texas Capitol, working every day amid splendid architecture and tourists to uproot myself to Iraq, and wound up...in a palace.

None of this I knew beforehand. Training for all contingencies, I spent months training in Humvees, shooting, and learning the special "tiger crouch" walk - a zig-zag pattern of movement designed to disrupt the aim of snipers. I planned for the worst, and ended up...here.

Not that I'll never need those skills from time to time. But the vast majority of my work is done indoors, in air conditioning, in what is more or less an office environment. Not that I'm complaining. I'm 35 years old and trained for a certain kind of work. I'm not an 18-year-old kid just out of school and full of piss and vinegar. But nonetheless, after all my training, it's a bit of a letdown.

So here I am, 6,000 miles from Austin, once again working in a place where tourists take photographs of the door hinges. Only these tourists, just like in Saddam's time, aren't the average Joe...or Abdul. They're almost all soldiers or contractors.

The two buildings - Al Faw and the Texas Capitol - are an interesting study in contrast. At 450,000 square feet, Al Faw is bigger than the Texas Capitol's 360,000, though the Iraqi building is much more square, than the Texas Capitol, which is elongated. The Texas Capitol has an ornate stone exterior and a relatively plain interior. Al Faw's exterior is dull sandstone, but its interior is filled with beautifully-polished marble and ornate designs.Overall, both buildings impress. But the Texas capitol does so with a tasteful, democratic grandeur. Al Faw does so in an excessive, jaw-dropping display of Oriental, authoritarian excess.

Al Faw Palace is one of eight built by Saddam Hussein during the mid 1990s as a luxury retreat for himself, his sons and leaders of the Bath Party. It's built on a vast complex of several palaces, arranged around a massive man-made lake, and several smaller lakes. At the same time that Saddam was complaining that his people were starving and Iraq was chronically short of water, he built this mammoth compound, consuming vast percentages of the Iraqi budget, and diverting immense sums of water that could have been used to irrigate crops.

It was upon seeing such things that Gen. Tommy Franks dismissed the United Nations "Oil for Food" program as "Oil for Palaces." The Palace, like many Saddam constructed, was built to honor great military victories. Dozens of these palaces exist. There's the "Victory over Iran" Palace, and the "Victory over America" Palace.

What?

That's right. To Saddam Hussein, the 1991 Gulf War was a victory for Iraq. Despite the fact that his army suffered a humiliating defeat and was expelled from Kuwait lost around 20,000-30,000 deaths in combat versus allied deaths of around 500, Saddam saw his own survival as proof that Iraq had won. As is so often the case with dictators, he was the state, and the state was him. As Louis XIV said, "L'État, c'est moi!"

Al Faw Palace was built to honor one of those "great" victories, in this case, the liberation of the Al Faw Peninsula in Southern Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. In 1986, a surprise Iranian attack led to a dramatic Iraqi defeat, and occupation of the Peninsula, which lies in Southern Iraq and juts out into the Persian Gulf. Humiliated by this reverse, Saddam massed 100,000 Republican Guard troops and launched a counter-offensive, supported by massive artillery barrages and chemical weapons, which caused immense casualties among the Iranian troops.Al Faw was reconquered, and Saddam considered it his greatest victory. He proclaimed a national holiday, and after the 1991 Gulf War, began work on the palace. When it was dedicated, it ostensibly claimed to be in honor of all the sacrifices made to win back Al Faw.

Writing at the entrance of the palace reads:

Peace on Faw in its defense

Peace on its land and its name

Peace on the honorable ones

Peace on the sacrificial blood.

However, despite these general platitudes, no names of the thousands of Iraqi soldiers who died are stenciled on its walls. Instead, it is Saddam's initials which are ever-present. It reminded me of Santa Anna's statement at the Alamo, when his generals urged he delay his attack to reduce the risk to his men. Santa Anna replied that he wanted his men to die, because only blood would consecrate his victory. After all, he added, "What are soldiers but so many chickens?"

This bridge connecting the palace and the mainland was hit by a U.S. precision-guided bomb. Another bridge remains intact.

A close-up picture.

The palace has a whopping 62 rooms, many are huge, ornate ballrooms, with lavish ornamentation and chandeliers. It includes 29 bathrooms, with ornate toilets painted in gold trim, and fixtures of gilded brass (most of which were long-ago "appropriated" by the ground troops who arrived in 2003 and are now replaced with more simple ones.The main hall has a massive dome - wider, but also shorter - than that in the Texas Capitol.

The rotunda area of the palace.

Another view inside the palace

The dome is ornately decorated with intricately-carved reliefs in geometric patterns, amid which one can see Saddam Hussein's initials, written in beautifully-scripted Arabic, everywhere.The centerpiece of this building, however, is the massive crystal chandelier which hangs from the center of the dome. With 234 lights, it fills the space, hanging down like a giant, luminescent inverted jellyfish.

The top of the dome, from which the chandelier hangs.

The chandelier. It is probably 25 feet tall.

And as opulent as it was, built at a staggering cost amid some of the world's worst poverty, the Al Faw Palace - one of Saddam's greatest and most notorious achievements - was not his only palace. It was hardly even his favorite. In fact, this Neuschwanstein of Baghdad was not even enough to get the dictator excited.

Saddam, it seems, only visited the place six or seven times.

Intricate designs fill the ceilings, even in the side hallways. These aren't just painted on, they're carved - or more likely, molded.