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Saddam's palaces looted days after
symbolic handover
13.1.2006
News about the Arab part of Iraq |
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Baghdad, 13 Jan.
(AKI) - Toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's
sumptuous palace compound was stripped bare by
looters within days of the much-trumpeted handover
of its keys by the US military to the local Iraqi
authorities in November, 2003. And the culprits were
Iraqi soldiers and officials - the very people who
were supposed to protect the palaces, the Washington
Post reported on Friday.
It was soldiers from the new Iraqi army and
officials to whom the Americans transferred the
control and safeguarding of the palaces in the
1000-acre compound who sacked them days later,
according to the governor of Salahuddin province,
Hamed Hamood Shekti. He received the keys to the
palaces from top US military officials in a
high-profile ceremony on 22 November, 2003. Iraqi
police also back Shekti's claim, the Washington Post
said.
Looters moved in to the lavish palaces, perched
above the Tigris river, with some of the most
commanding views in Iraq, ripping out doors, air
conditioners, ceiling fans and light-switch plates
from some of the compound's 136 palaces, and leaving
little more than plaster and dangling electric
wires. Days later, some of the looted furnishings
turned up in local markets by the truckload,
according to residents in Saddam's home town of
Tikrit.
The full extent of the alleged looting could not be
determined, also the palaces that had been occupied
by US officials as well as other ones had been
stripped bare, said provincial police commander Lt.
Col. Mahmud Hiazza, quoted by the Washington Post.
Hiaaza said he started investigating the lootings
straight after police first entered the palace
compound.
"I found everything was looted, even the electrical
switches," he told the paper. When Hiazza formally
accused Jabara and members of the provincial council
over the lootings, he was abruptly transferred to
the insurgent stronghold of Baiji, so that he would
"get killed". He resigned instead.
"Thank God we were able to save the walls from the
looters, because everything else was stolen," Shekti
told the Washington Post by telephone. His own
deputy, Abdullah Naji Jabara, must also bear some
responsibility for the looting, Shekti said.
Jabra could not reached by telephone for comment,
and local authorities said Jabara was also
unavailable as he had left to perform the Haj
pilgrimage in Mecca, the Washington Post said.
Police first entered the palaces about 20 days after
the Americans left, said Maj. Subhi Nadhum, a deputy
commander of a police emergency unit in the area.
"Iraqi forces were the only forces inside the
presidential palaces after the Americans left,"
Nadhum said. During those 20 days the deputy
governor and members of the governing council were
going back and forth among the army commanders at
the palaces, he stated.
www.adnki.com
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