A Visit to Camp Slayer

I took a trip recently over to Camp Slayer, another massive base on the same complex as Victory. Like Victory, Slayer is built on a former Ba'ath Party playground - a resort that looks more like a water park than the home of an oppressive regime.

There are palm groves everywhere here. They're really quite beautiful, except that beneath the trees and the reeds is just more and more of that almost sickly Baghdad sand. I seriously think we should import several tons of Astroturf to Iraq so that they can put it down and pretend they have grass. I think there's a direct relationship to the amount of grass a country has to how violent and repressive they are. I mean, look at England. They've got tons of grass, and they haven't launched a war in a century.

The lake, like that at Camp Victory proper, is surrounded by Palaces and offices of the Ba'ath Party. When Gen. Tommy Franks referred to the "Oil for Food" program as "Oil for Palaces," he wasn't kidding. Saddam built them with a manic obsession, even as his people were starving.

This palace appears to have a little bay where a large boat could be brought in. On the other side of the lake, half sunk, there's a large houseboat which looks like it would have fit perfectly in this bay. The left section of the palace in this picture must have had some significance - it was probably one of Saddam's many bedrooms - because we sent a cruise missile into it.

This massive palace was never finished, and sits abandoned. It is a testament to Saddam's meglomaniacal powers of self-delusion called the "Victory over America" Palace. Yes. In addition to the Victory over the Persians palace, he had to build a monument to his collossal 1991 Gulf War victory, in which he lost a mere 20,000 soldiers to our 100 or so. He also valliantly sacrificed thousands of tanks (as opposed to the clearly vanquished Americans, who lost fewer than a dozen) and the entire Iraqi Air Force was blown to oblivion or - in a show of tremendous courage - flew to Iran and hid. Yet, the one thing that was important to Saddam Hussein - his own skin - was preserved. Therefore, for him, it was a victory.

There are at least two others on base that were in the middle of construction when the war kicked off. We're just letting them rot. The Iraqis can figure out what to do with them when we give them back.

The lake here is dotted with a lot of small islands. Some have houses and long bridges out to them. Some just appear to be there for looks.

A small villa on one of the islands. Saddam's friends and relatives all had their own little batchelor pads here. His evil sons Uday and Qusay also had houses, which supposedly have some very disturbing mosaics on the walls.

Another Villa.

And another.

A drawbridge on one of the roads, for passage of some of the large boats that once plied these waters.

The most impressive palace at this complex is what's known as the Perfume Palace, which was a favorite hangout of Uday and Qusay, who maintained a brothel here. It is said that the smell of the perfume of the...employees...was so strong that it could be smelled for years after they had gone. On my one trip inside this palace, I saw some amazing art, including a fascinating bas relief depicting scenes from the Iran/Iraq war and an astounding chandellier...but no perfume.

But perhaps the most strange thing on this base is something not even I would have ever expected to find. I'll save that for my next post.