Opulence for Saddam while Iraqis starved

5.45pm

BAGHDAD - He called it the Council of the People, but in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, most people never saw it.

It was the main building in the Republican Palace in Baghdad, one of the most opulent buildings in the world, rebuilt by Saddam to defy the world after the 1991 Gulf War, while much of Iraq lived in squalour.

"Armies from thirty nations invaded and he (Saddam) emerged larger than life," reads a marble plaque inside. Another plaque records how Saddam's engineers restored the building just one year after it was bombed in 1991.

Now, foreign nations have invaded again but this time, instead of emerging larger than life, Saddam has disappeared and his Baathist leadership has toppled. Some believe he may be dead.

With US troops occupying Baghdad, including the Republican Palace, journalists have been able to inspect Saddam's taste in grandiose building projects, highlighting his personality cult and vision of himself as an historic Arab leader.

As with his other palaces in Iraq, everything is massive and elaborate. Interiors have gold doors and engraved wooden ceilings. Some bathrooms have gold fittings and there are hundreds of mostly empty rooms and marble-lined halls.

Verses from the Koran and the emblem of a hawk decorate the outer walls.

A large mural in the entrance hall shows Saddam standing on a pile of bricks and handing one to a palace builder. Several busts of him in an Islamic helmet sit on the roof.

In recent weeks, US warplanes relentlessly raided the presidential compound, which stretches for kilometres along the Tigris river, but spared the main palace building.

The compound was the first site US forces captured inside Baghdad. Now it is the headquarters for the US 4-64 Battalion of the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Army Division.

US tanks and other armour are placed at the entrances. Apart from the military, only journalists have been allowed inside the compound, which is surrounded by government buildings that are being looted, mostly by residents of the Saddam City slum district several miles to the east.

The palace contrasts starkly with the poverty that has gripped Iraq since its defeat 12 years ago. The ballroom is the size of an opera house, with a wooden ceiling and balconies. Underneath is a private cinema with blue leather chairs.

The meeting and reception rooms together are as large as a football field. There Saddam used to receive army officers who pledged loyalty to him in front of television cameras.

"It was all show. Saddam's aides used to hand the generals papers with what to say in front of him," said Major Amer Ahmad, who defected in the first days of the war.

A painting shows missiles bearing an Iraqi flag being fired into an angry dark sky. White horses are painted against the sky on the inside of a dome. According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Mohammad visited heaven on a white horse from the site of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

The library has mostly books dating back to the zenith of Arab Muslim rule a millennium ago, such as The Systematic History of Kings and Nations, by Ibn al-Jouzi.

A crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling next to marble tiles engraved with the 99 names of God.

A garden lined with palm and orange trees stretches for acres.

Greek-style statues stand at the entrance of a another building, apparently reserved for foreign guests. Saddam's family living quarters were in a separate palace, called al-Sujoud. Access there was blocked by US tanks.

In the Council of the People building, sayings by Saddam are engraved on the walls.

"If you get to govern then rule justly and do not let your whims influence your decisions," reads one.

However, wars and repression are what most Iraqis will associate with his rule.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war