[edit: oh fuck I did not realize today was the anniversary. this is not part of a Thing, though like, it's still fucked up.]
just in case there's any zoomers too young to remember how things were
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD BLYSTONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was built while more than half his people were living on food handouts. Their wretchedness far out of sight, beyond the outbuildings. And those who built it knew well what he wanted. Not nearly opulence, a monument to a demigod, pinned to this region's ancient deities, emperors, warrior heroes. Few got this chance to look up Saddam's nose.
These men say they worked in the gardens, just wanted to see what it was like inside. They offer beauty that this pile of marble never achieved. The dictator seems to have liked his furnishings expensive and tacky. But all the work that went into them is wasted now. Guess whose picture was in that frame? In the conference room, where lower powers agreed with higher powers. No question who is in power here now.
War and looting have done to this palace what the regime did to Iraq. And maybe it's best to come here after it's been well and truly looted. To come when there's no sense of virtue's triumph left, no feeling of satisfaction to be had. The lesson isn't in the now missing gold-plated bathroom taps. Just about anyone in the west who really wants to can have those. But the few great maniacal egos of history usually get this.
(on camera): It brings to mind Shelly's poem about the two vast legs of stone found in the desert and the words "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair and all about on every hand the loan and level sands stretch far away."
Richard Blystone, CNN, at Saddam Hussein's Salom palace, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE) COLLINS: Iraq is about twice the size of Idaho, and to get a sense of just how vast its network of presidential palaces was, you need a little perspective. And for that, we turn to Miles O'Brien at the CNN Center in Atlanta.
Miles, hello.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks very much, Heidi. Talk about conspicuous consumption, the palaces of Saddam Hussein. It really boggles the mind. Let's take a look at a big, wide picture of Iraq and give you a sense of where those palaces are from Basra all the way up to Mosul. About four of them down in the south, about 10 of them up in the north in the Mosul area, 50-plus palaces in this central area, in and around the environs of Baghdad. The total cost, just of the palaces built since the '91 Gulf War, $2 billion.
Let's zoom in on Baghdad, where there are no less than five major palace complexes. And when we talk about palace complexes, we're talking about an area that covers 12 square miles, a thousand buildings. And of course, it has been alleged over time that they might be places that would hide weapons of mass destruction.