Saddam's museum in ruins
2003-04-21 18:51
Baghdad - "The Museum of the Victorious Leader" read the words on a gold plaque at the door of a Baghdad building once dedicated to the life and work of President Saddam Hussein but now ransacked by looters and under US guard.
Inside the ravaged museum someone has defecated on one of the dozens of portraits and pictures of the toppled tyrant.
The American troops who went into the museum for the first time on Monday found around 20 Baghdadis hunting for any items that might have escaped earlier looters.
"I don't know what sort of a place this is but they've really roughed it up," said Sergeant Liam Levesqus, adding that his troops would now guard "whatever's left" and stop the building from being set ablaze.
The museum in downtown Baghdad is in the form of a pyramid with a clock on top that was damaged during the three week US-led war to oust Saddam.
Its wood- and marble-lined rooms contain a sycophantic mix of presents given to Saddam by various heads of state, ministers and diplomats along with hundreds of demonstrations of love from his subjects.
The golden spoons, antique pistols and myriad other items have all gone. Only the tags that explained who they were from and when they were presented remain.
Photographs from Saddam's life, his speeches translated into various languages, his letters, books on his hometown of Tikrit, and souvenirs of state visits are scattered across this three-storey monument to one man's ego.
On the ground lie hundreds of postcards and poems sent from schools across Iraq to praise the man who ruthlessly ruled the country for 24 years.
"May God protect my beloved Saddam on the day of his birthday, may he live many years in good health and defeat his enemies," said one signed by 11-year-old Ahmed Taher, in a tribute to the leader whose 66th birthday falls on April 28.
"May he long be the leader of all Iraqis and a father to the children of this country," it went on.
In a sideroom dozens of photos and paintings of Saddam have been sliced with knives, torn up and trampled on. Some of the few remaining intact ones have the word "revenge" written in Arabic above the picture of Saddam.
The pictures show him kissing the Koran, the Muslim holy book, in a military uniform as he waves to cheering crowds, or visiting Islam's holiest sites in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
A similar fate has befallen the Baghdad museum of Saddam's former ruling Ba'ath Party. A handwritten sign at its door announces that several families have taken up residence there.
"We've been living here for a week because we have nowhere else to go. We lost our house in the bombings," explained Yasser, acting as spokesperson for the 24 people living there.
He said a US general had told them they could live there if they protected what remained of the museum's collection.
Yasser, who was at pains to point out that the building's new residents had no connections with the Ba'ath, added that before they arrived looters had taken weapons, pictures and documents from the museum.
"If we lost our house because of Saddam then I have no regrets taking one of his," he said.
The museum, located on Ramadan 14 Avenue, traces the history of the party from its foundation in Damascus in 1947 through the coup that took it to power in Iraq in 1968, and on to Saddam's dominance 11 years later.
A poem engraved on a pillar inside the building says: "The old and the young say that our Saddam is a prince. He is the first and the last leader that the Iraqi people will love."