Posted on 12/15/2003 8:12:40 PM PST by blam
Inside Saddam's lair, the detritus of a fugitive's life
Rory McCarthy in Ad Dawr, where Saddam existed in squalor not far from his former palace
Tuesday December 16, 2003
The Guardian (UK)
There is a rickety wooden ladder leading to the corrugated iron roof on top of the brick hut and if he had climbed up, leant against the date palm and peered out on a clear day, Saddam Hussein might just have been able to make out his opulent Tikrit palace further upstream on the far bank of the Tigris. Perhaps he took that image with him and with it the memories of the gross and cruel power he once exercised in the name of the Iraqi people when he slid into the hole in the earth of the courtyard and disappeared into his miserable underground shelter.
It is the smallest of spaces and for a man of Saddam's waistline and pitiful taste for huge oak-panel doors and opulent ballrooms it must have been a daily torture to squeeze down into the gap.
The first section of the shelter is a narrow, square, chest-deep hole. Once inside he had to contort his body feet first and tucked to the left to reach inside what the Americans call his "underground facility" until he was on his back. There was barely room to lie straight and no chance to sit up.
It looks as if the former Iraqi president tried to civilise his hideout as best he could. An electrical cable runs from the hut across a stick of wood to the date palm and then down a grey drainpipe into the hole in the ground. The cable powers a foot-long fluorescent tube at what must have been the foot-end of his hideout. At the end where his head rested, the drainpipe delivers air, fresh of a sort, and next to the pipe is a cheap white plastic ventilator, turning uselessly in the dark.
It is hard to believe that he spent more than a few hours a day trapped here. Above ground, the small compound is filthy and putrid but shows signs of a life half-lived.
In the compound there is a single-room brick hut to the left, and in it are two beds and a small fridge. The sink, packets of food and a gold-framed mirror are in a half-exposed lean-to built on the side of the hut. Before them is a concrete courtyard and at its edge a small, incongruous patch of grey carpet hiding the entrance to the shelter.
From there, the land drops down steeply to a stagnant ditch and into a lush grove of orange and pomegranate trees that stretches to the Tigris, a few hundred yards distant.
A line of sausages dries in the chill air on the clothes line under the date palm, next to a string of dried figs and a red and blue string holding two keys. In the courtyard is a broken wooden bed and on it a gasoline generator owner's manual, written in English.
Inside the hut, blankets are piled on the two beds which sit under a child's poster depicting Noah's ark: it shows a colourful queue of cartoon animals in pairs skipping towards the great wooden ship.
On the fridge in the corner are bars of Palmolive soap, a tub of Saj moisturising cream and a translucent wash bag holding scissors and thread. Next to this are three canisters of Pif Paf insect repellent (Faster Knock Down: Kills All Insects). There is more insect repellent in the lean-to round the corner: another seven packets still in their plastic shopping bag. Even in winter, the bugs must have irked a man accustomed to a life cut off from the realities and daily hardships of the Iraq that he dragged through war and sanctions.
Inside the fridge are 10 chicken sausages, a box of Bounty chocolate, a vial of eye-drops and a jar of mango pickle. On a shelf in the corner of the hut is a stick of Lacoste deodorant and by it a tub of minted toothpicks. A pair of Italian women's shoes sits in a box on the floor, new perhaps. On top of them are a pair of Lanvin socks, unworn.
The kitchen next door stinks. Eggs are smashed across the floor and the radishes, cucumbers, kiwis and bananas are starting to rot. Turkish Delight sweets are scattered in their own sugar across the concrete. Oddly, on a supporting pole at the edge of the lean-to, are a series of stylised portraits of Jesus and Mary, under the words in English: God Bless Our Home.
And here finally in the kitchen is the large, gold-framed mirror, clean and propped up against the wall. It is positioned in such a way that a man preparing his food or eating lunch at the small table would have little choice but to stare at himself and take in the dirt around him.
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