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Posted on 04/11/2003 1:35:50 PM PDT by Prince Charles
Pink chiffon sanctum for playboy son's seduction of defenceless 'conquests'
THE women of the US forces were not impressed. But other women, brought into this same place, once had no choice but to feign admiration for the surroundings.
This was one of the innermost sanctums of the Saddam regime - a pink chiffon hideaway where the dictator's playboy son Uday appears to have entertained defenceless sexual "conquests".
Two minutes south along the Tigris from Saddam's giant Republican Palace, the sight of Arabian nights minarets, heart-shaped pillows and a swimming pool with waterside bar are the first indications that this is no ordinary Hussein family residence. As a symbol of excess deposed, it cannot be bettered.
The gilt-edged glass goblets with which the voracious Uday once tempted young girls now lie shattered by an American shell that has ripped the heart from the pleasure dome.
Now covered in dust are the ground floor's pink chiffon curtains, heart-shaped blue pillows and a dusty, bomb-damaged fresco of Sheherezade playing a lyre and weaving her nightly fantasies before the king to stay alive for 1,001 nights.
In one bedroom, a young Californian soldier lounges on a four-poster bed, still cradling her M16 and wearing her boots. Grimacing at the execrable taste on display all around her, she passes up the opportunity to spend the night chez Uday. "I didn't want to sleep in here last night (Thursday). I don't like sharing my sheets," she sniffs.
Another fingers the second-rate audio equipment fitted into the tackiest of green chipboard cabinets, fronted with shiny silver panels. And, of course, gold taps everywhere.
The only visible evidence of Saddam himself is a large bust, now toppled from its plinth. But the romantic retreat is unquestionably that of Uday's.
Affixed to a consignment of unused duvets is a handwritten note for delivery to Mr Uday, apparently at "Dome's Place". Elsewhere, an official crested notepaper bears Uday's name in elegantly written Arabic, next to the Iraqi eagle and shield.
The building, captured on the Americans' first night in central Baghdad, contains a combination of tat and luxury that belies the stench of death in the wide boulevards outside, where Iraqi loyalists died trying to defend this and other "royal" residences.
They died, it appears, protecting dining rooms full of ornate Japanese chinaware with orchid motifs, tables with inlaid portraits of dancing courtesans and singing maidens, all, curiously, with startling blue eyes.
It is the subtle hints of romance that betray the building's apparent Dionysian purpose.
On the walls hang paintings of young men fondling the breasts of their lovers, men quaffing from huge goblets of wine, and both sexes smoking nargila waterpipes.
Here it is easy to miss the smell of the corpses lying outside. They are drowned out by the scent of multi-coloured roses planted throughout the garden around the giant satellite dish, banned to all but the chosen few in Iraq.
In the next-door Republican Palace, whose four giant heads of Saladin/Saddam once commanded the Baghdad skyline, acres of palatial marble have now been commandeered by Lieutenant Colonel Philip Decamp, and the men of 4th Brigade 64th Armoured Division.
In the palace reached only past a succession of huge twisted gates and buildings devastated by two days of fighting, Lieutenant Colonel Decamp gestures around him at the empty splendour. "This one is huge, but the one next door is like Hugh Hefner's house," he said.
"These guys had the best of everything, the nicest stuff you ever saw. I've even had to lock up a third building we found that was full of contraband.
"There was everything in there: Waterman pen sets worth hundreds of dollars, Jose Cuervo Mexican tequila, the best booze. We even found Unicef supplies and some personal stuff, like his black hat and Newsweek articles about him." (© The Times, London)
Stephen Farrell in Baghdad
LOL!! Good one!
Or if CNN correspondents *were* his dates...
:)
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