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A peek into Saddam's postbox
24/04/2003 20:53 - (SA)
Baghdad - Saddam Hussein received a bit of everything in the mailbox. There were messages from the world's rich and powerful to the once proud strongman of Baghdad, and there were letters from ordinary people with simple requests.
A glimpse at some of Saddam's correspondence was possible in the ruins of one of his palaces destroyed by US air power.
Helmut Hierzer of Austria wrote to Saddam Hussein in the hope of getting a watch with the now-deposed president's picture on it.
In the letter dated September 24, 2002, the Austrian enclosed a photograph cut out of a newspaper showing the object of his desire, which he explained he needed "to complete (his) collection of watches".
This request could be easily met.
"Approved," reads the handwriting of the head of the presidential office, Ahmed Hussein Khodeir, on a document bearing the regime's official emblem of an eagle with open wings.
There was no invoice, just a note that "arrangements will be made to send the watch to the Austrian citizen".
The sample of archives from Saddam's 24-year rule left in the debris showed little of much importance, despite abundant labels classifying the documents "secret".
Many messages simply wished the Iraqi leadership well, particularly for Muslim holidays.
Correspondents included UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in a message bearing his initials and the blue insignia of the world body, Cuban President Fidel Castro, a number of Arab leaders and a motley assortment of other figures from around the world.
Jazz artist
One of the more puzzling items was sent by New York jazz artist Andrew "Tex" Allen, who sent a press packet to Saddam with the musician's photograph and a hand-written letter.
"To President Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq," Allen wrote, he wanted to express "brotherhood". He signed his name and drew a heart.
But the biggest heart in the collection of letters came in an immense card sent by Wafa Abdul Salem Aref, the daughter of one of Iraq's former presidents following the 1958 abolition of the monarchy.
"We will be your soldiers until the last breath," she wrote to Saddam for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Saddam's office sent her his thanks on February 17, 2003.
In true tribal tradition, a Qatari sheikh, Mohammed bin Nasser al-Khalifa, in 2002 sent a poem extolling Saddam's glory, telling him that he "rose the Arabs' heads higher than any other".
The poem was sent through Iraq's embassy in Qatar to the foreign ministry here before being sent to the palace. Each step in the poem's journey is marked by an official journal, minus of course its final trip into the heap of rubble following Saddam's ouster.
The president's office was not able to meet all requests.
"Case closed" was the conclusion late last year to a letter from a Palestinian who wanted €1.466m ($1.62m) to manufacture medals bearing on one side Saddam's portrait and on the other those of "martyrs of the Palestinian uprising".
"It's a round-about way to finance an organisation," the office decided on advice of vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan.
The Palestinian, Jomaa Abu Zikri, said he was head of the National Administrative Association of Services and wanted to help out residents of the Gaza Strip. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA
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