The Palace

Wow -- the best and only word to describe the palace!! I'm in Baghdad this week. I flew up here Monday morning, to provide some training and assistance to part of the Theater Property Book Team.

The flight up was....interesting. There were about 20 of us in a C17. A C17 is a HUGE aircraft, and they actually had real people airline chairs in the middle of the aircraft. It was about an hour flight, and we each had plenty of room to spread out. I've never flown in an aircraft where they hand you earplugs, and encourage you to wear your body armor and kevlar helmet for the flight!!! The take off was OK. The flight itself was smooth. The combat landing -- yikes!!! But, I guess I'd rather combat land, that get plucked out of the sky.

Now for the palace. I attended a meeting (can't describe the meeting, or attendees), but it was in the Palace. It was Saddam's primary palace, and he spared no money -- or I should say Iraq spared no money when building the palace and the palace grounds. (I promise to post pictures when I get them downloaded!) The U. S. Government has taken all of the furnishings and put them away (for safe keeping) to give back to the Iraqi government once it gets totally on their feet. They have left the thrown just inside the door of the palace -- a place for soldiers (like me!) who love a Kodak moment. Many pictures are taken of those sitting in the thrown. The chandeliers were unbelievable. The big one as you enter the palace is about 3 stories (VERY TALL stories) high. The base of the chandelier is about 25 - 30 foot across. There is no way my camera could take a picture of its entirety. I have two photos to capture all of it's beauty. The sinks and toilets were decorated with filigree gold paint. The Palace grounds have a moat system that intertwines several smaller palace-like houses. Many were for those that worked for Saddam. One -- a quaint and pretty palace -- is called the perfume palace. It's where all of Saddam's wives lived. It was quite a visit. Someday the Palace will go back to the Iraqi government, in the meantime -- it's used by the U. S. as office space.

At breakfast I saw two Iraqi Military officers. They have quite a life. They have to life off post and travel in through the gate each day. They travel in their civilian clothes and change into their uniform at a location where they are checked out by the U. S. forces before going to work. They have to really believe to put themselves and their family in jeopardy every minute of the day when they are outside the gates of this installation.

It's really different here in Baghdad, from where I am at in Kuwait. Here -- you KNOW you're in a combat zone. There are very few lights (don't want to light up a potential target!) and in the evenings no one is outside very much. At night you can hear a lot of gun fire and periodically in the daytime you hear a lot of explosions (RGP's or something). The Palace area is right next to the Baghdad International Airport, so we constantly hear low flying aircraft and helicopters. The walls around the camps are very high, approximately 20-25 foot. We're a few short miles from the green zone, or the International Zone (IZ). It's the 5-mile road from hell where all the car bombings occur frequently. I'm not going to test fate -- I have no need to travel over there! Those that work in that area (to include the American Embassy), life here, but travel daily back and forth. They go either by chopper, or ride in an armored bus. What a gothic-looking mode of transportation.

Til later ~~ Candy