It's still McDonalds - even in Arabic

I have a few posts coming up from my short trip to Jordan. Until then, I do want to share two photos of a standard stop for American tourists. It is almost a rule that you need to visit at least one McDonalds and I didn't miss this opportunity. We stopped here for quick bite on the way out to visit Petra, Jordan. The Quarterpounder and fries was perfect after 4 months without McDonalds. To make it even more authentic, we ate in the car on the way.

Ba'ath Party Convention Center

The other big building on the Camp Slayer tour is the Ba'ath Party Convention Center. The construction design of this building is one of many that follows the Iraqi/Muslim convention that no sin can happen on water. It is only connect to the mainland by a bridge and is surrounded by water on all four sides. Essentially, it is a rectangle of large hallways big room complexes at each corner consisting of a pool area, theater, dining room, and conference room. It also has two docks right in the middle of the building.

This building was actually the location of the "first strike" of OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM in March 2003. The President had received intelligence that there was a large gathering of the Ba'ath Party/Iraqi Government in this building, specifically in the theater. A Navy Tomahawk missile launched from the USS Bunker Hill completely destroyed the theater and took out nearly 200 of the top government and military officials. We missed Saddam by 15 minutes. Some of you may have already heard this, but the movie that was in the theater's projector...Pretty Woman.

The first picture is the center "courtyard", showing the stilts supporting the building coming out of the lake. You will also see a JDAM bomb hole at the far end. The second picture is the pool, which as I understand it, was never filled...used primarily for torture and executions. Next is the dining room, which originally had the largest continuous chandelier around...now interrupted by another JDAM bomb hole. This last picture is an example of the ornate painted plaster ceilings that fill all of these buildings.

Victory Over America Palace

On Sundays at Camp Slayer, they offer tours of the palaces and buildings spaced around the lakes. Camp Slayer was originally part of the Abu Ghurayb Presidential Grounds and was home to the Republican Guard and the Iraqi Military Academy. The largest Palace on Slayer, never finished, is the Victory Over America Palace. In fact, the construction cranes still stand right beside it. The palace is so big, it was built to wrap around the already completed Victory over Iran Palace. You might wonder why Saddam named these palaces for victories that he didn't actually win. The popular story is that Saddam believed any war that he survived was a victory.

The palace itself is gigantic and the first picture shows the entrance. The second picture shows the main ballroom on the top floor that is football field sized and roughly 4 stories tall with multiple balconies, galleries, and attached "apartments". Though this palace was never completed or occupied, at some point in the early war, we targeted and struck this main ballroom area with 2 JDAM bombs. Maybe this was our answer to the palace's inaccurate name. All of the debris you see in the picture is a combination of leftover construction materials and bomb damage.

The third picture shows the ornate and unfinished stairways...no railings! It was a long way down. After seeing the remains of the fine Iraqi construction throughout the base, I always kept an eye open for something to grab on to quickly, just in case. As an example of the interesting Iraqi construction techniques, the floors all over the palace look like very roughly poured concrete - not a good base layer to put a nice floor on top of. It turns out that the Iraqis built the ornate marble tiled floors first, before the palace was even close to done, then to protect them from the construction, poured the rough concrete over the top. When the palace was completed, the workers would have had to chip off every single bit of the concrete protective layer to expose the marble floors. I guess no one ever explained that it is probably easiest to do the floors last. Or they didn't care.

The palace is also the tallest building around, with great views towards downtown Baghdad and around the rest of the base. This last picture from the roof is a view toward Uday Hussein's house, the Ba'ath Party Convention Center (more on that later), and in the distance, the Al Faw Palace which I mentioned in previous posts.

The Bomb-a-Grill

I was in the IZ last weekend for a meeting at the Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq (MNSTC-I) when I sighted this very peculiar looking grill outside. If you look closely, you will see that it is a grill built out of a bomb casing. Art, Soldier boredom project, or functional grill? Maybe a little of all three. Note the non-functional shredder underneath.

Teaser - Me and the tall guy

Okay, I am still lagging in putting posts up. I have been busy at work and by the time I get back to my CHU, I am falling asleep at the keyboard. SOON! To tide you over, here is a picture of me with one of the last remaining murals of Saddam. The mural is in the old Republican Guard compound on what we now call Camp Slayer.

More posts coming

I apologize for the lack of posting. I was out of town in Jordan for a week and am now trying to recover from all the work that built up in my absence. I have several posts coming on the Victory Over America Palace, Baath Party House, my trip to Jordan, etc. Stay tuned, I'll get them up in the next few days.