A Trip Across Town

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Last week I traveled across town to Victory Base Complex to attend a day of orientation briefings on Multi-National Force - Iraq. While the Gulf Region Division has roots to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, GRD is considered a major subordinate command of MNFI.


The training was held in Al Faw Palace, which is the headquarters of MNFI. The palace is extremely beautiful and the pictures I'm attaching do not do it justice.

I thought about bringing my own camera that day but I decided to leave it because truthfully I didn't think we'd be allowed to take pictures in the palace. Well, I was wrong, but fortunately one of our branch chiefs, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, brought his and he took a few pictures for me. If I get a chance to go again I'll be sure to take my camera.

The lighting inside the building is really tricky for a point-and-shoot camera so please forgive the blurry aspects of the photos.










Al Faw Palace was one of eight palaces used by Saddam. The palace was built to commemorate the sacrifices made by the Iraqi Army during the Iran-Iraq War in regaining al-Faw peninsula, located in southern Iraq. The peninsula was so important because without it Iraq would be landlocked.
The palace is surrounded by a lake and villa complex. Its construction began in 1989 and was finished just prior to Desert Storm. It was declared off limits to UN Arms inspectors in 1998, one of the events that brought Iraq under scrutiny by the U.S. Saddam's initials can be found throughout the palace. The chandelier in the rotunda has 256 lights. The throne I'm sitting on was a gift from Yassir Arafat to Saddam.

Comments

  1. KenMarch 11, 2009 at 6:15 PM

    Ahhhh, it's like I was just there yesterday! You gotta check out the toilets! haha

    ReplyDelete

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