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Bekijk Volledige Versie : Champagne, wodka, leeuwen, beren en meer verrassingen in paleizen Sadam....!



Ron Haleber
12-04-03, 09:45
Champagne, wodka, leeuwen, beren en meer verrassingen in paleizen Sadam....!

Ik kon de verleiding niet weerstaan deze pikante tekst over de inhoud van de paleizen van roverhoofdman Sadam die ik niet in onze kranten vond, hier neer te zetten. Natuurlijk rechtvaardigen deze vondsten de invasie niet!


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-war-palace11apr11004423,1,3501059.story?coll=la%2Dhead lines%2Dworld%2Dmanual

At one of his palaces, troops explore 22 kitchens and countless bedrooms. They also find cheetahs, bears and packed suitcases.

By David Zucchino. Times Staff Writer April 11, 2003

BAGHDAD -- For the record, Saddam Hussein seems to prefer Italian suits, double-breasted, by Canali. He favors silk ties, some by Hermes, in solids or subtle patterns. He brushes with Colgate.
The dictator's clothes were hanging Thursday in the wardrobe of a luxurious upstairs bedroom in one of the dozens of compounds within a palace complex that stretches for two miles along the west bank of the Tigris River here. On a coffee table lay a wedding album containing photos of Hussein cutting a wedding cake, and on a bureau were snapshots of his sons, Uday and Qusai, as young boys.

Lt. Col. Philip deCamp, commander of a tank battalion that pounded its way onto the palace grounds Monday, riffled through the photos. He let out a soft whistle, amazed to be standing in the room where Hussein apparently had slept, perhaps very recently.
"Hey," DeCamp said, pointing to three packed suitcases stacked in an anteroom. "It looks like he left in a pretty big hurry."

Thursday was a day of revelations for the armored crews and commanders camped at the palace -- one of dozens built by Hussein, who is known for changing his location almost nightly. They discovered a pen of emaciated lions, cheetahs and bears on the palace grounds. A stroll through the rose gardens revealed the rotting corpses of Iraqi soldiers blown from sandy bunkers by the crews' tanks rounds.

Scouts from the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division found a live sheep and fed it to a cheetah, which was joined in the feast by three lions.
Across the pen, a thin brown bear cub bounded through the grass, dragging the entrails of a sheep provided earlier by the same scouts. The soldiers laughed in approval, regarding the sheep donations as a gesture of caring.

On the other side of the palace, an engineer battalion tore into the dry earth with backhoes to dig graves. Local Iraqis were recruited to ensure that the bodies were properly washed in the Islamic tradition and buried facing Mecca.

The palace was so large that DeCamp had his men count the rooms and write the numbers on an index card: 142 offices, 64 bathrooms, 19 meeting rooms, 22 kitchens, countless bedrooms, one movie theater, five "huge ballrooms" and one "football-field sized monster ballroom."

Even a cursory tour took hours, through mirrored hallways, across marble floors, beneath intricately tile-domed entryways.
In Hussein's bedroom, DeCamp thumbed through a Newsweek magazine on a nightstand. The cover story was "Inside America's new way of war," an examination of high-tech U.S. weaponry.
"Guess he was trying to get ready for us," said DeCamp, who commands the 4th Battalion in the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade -- the brigade that took central Baghdad.
He spotted a black fedora, the type seen in a popular photo of Hussein firing a shotgun with one hand. It was almost an icon, and DeCamp admired it in his hands.
In adjoining rooms were more family snapshots -- Hussein kissing young boys and greeting women wearing head scarves. There were many photos of a dark-haired woman, at various ages, perhaps one of Hussein's wives or daughters.

In a closet were 20 to 30 black and navy blue suits, tailored for a tall, barrel-chested man. Many were still inside garment bags, tailors' tags on their sleeves. Dozens of shirts with French cuffs hung in long rows.
In a bathroom with brass fittings lay a toothbrush and toothpaste, a crimson bathrobe, a razor and a bar of Lux soap. Next door, in a study, were shelves of Arabic books, one containing a photo of Josef Stalin, reported to be Hussein's role model.

Down a spiral staircase, in rooms with gilded chairs and tables, were more photos of family gatherings, showing a young, black-mustachioed Hussein eating and laughing with smiling military officers. These were intimate, apparently unscripted moments, different from the stylized images of the dictator that adorned public buildings in Iraq.

U.S. intelligence officers concluded, based on informants' reports, that Hussein had stayed in the compound recently. The property was secured, to be scoured by "the alphabet," OGA and ODA -- "other government agencies," such as the CIA and FBI, and "operational detachment A's," or Special Forces "A" teams. They had already seized a trove of Ministry of Engineering documents detailing illicit oil sales, officers said.

DeCamp moved on to another ornate compound where, the night before, his battalion had discovered a hoard of luxury items. He dragged open a door. Inside were vast supplies of TV sets, Moet champagne, Russian vodka, imported American cigarettes, 150 Persian rugs, Parker pen sets, French wines and expensive Lladro figurines.

These, according to the colonel, were gratuities handed out by Hussein's functionaries to favored members of the ruling Baath Party. He offered no explanation for the cache of UNICEF children's clothes and toys.

DeCamp spotted an Iraqi taxi driver, Ayad Izat, 35, who had driven Polish journalists from the east side of the Tigris. "You were never allowed to see all these palaces, were you?" the colonel asked the awe-struck cabby. "Oh, no, never, of course not," Izat said. "For me, it's the first time to see this -- and you know the people have no money at all."

DeCamp climbed into his armored Humvee, and the sergeant behind the wheel cruised past more palace compounds. There were swimming pools, exercise rooms with treadmills and bikes, movie theaters, stands of palm trees and carefully pruned bushes of pink roses.