Bill Dawes - June 27, 2007

The accommodations for our first night in Baghdad were a 2 ½ star EconoLodge-style hotel called "Camp Liberty." In a former life, it was one of the many hunting lodges on the grounds of Saddam's Al-Faw Palace. The place had a "bad European hostel" vibe to it. The only thing missing was the tart smell of French armpit. The confluence of gaudy, over-indulgent interior design and cheap, rigid military pragmatism made "Camp Liberty" a sight gag.

We'd walk down one of the elaborate marble corridors and off to the side, we'd see a baroque Louis XIV love seat. Next to it would be a deep, rich mahogany table. On top of that would be a Mr. Coffee with paper filters spread everywhere. Seated on a formica-framed chair beside the table, a chubby private would be scratching himself while inhaling bite-size Snickers. It really felt like we were on the set of something theatrically fake, like a Jane Austen movie; except instead of grips in Dickies, there were grunts in Cammies.

After a quick look around, we dropped our stuff in one of the Sense and Sensibility side rooms and checked our room. (I forget the name of the "suite" we were staying in, but it was cutely named after some province the military annexed, like the "Tikrit Suite.") We found the same awkward juxtaposition of styles in our suite as we found everywhere else in the Hussein Hunting Hostel. We were going to spend the night in a rococo bedroom obviously made for a woman, with a pink king size bed at its center; the frame bedecked with seashell forms and curling waves. Across from that vision of garish over-decoration, ten Army bunk beds stood clumped together by the windows. The curtains were closed, blocking the view of the private lake adjacent to "Camp Liberty," a seemingly subtle reminder to the troops and personnel staying here that this wasn't Club AchMed.

Upon entering our room, I immediately called "dibs" on the bed, and, to my amazement, found that "dibs" still works with full grown men. Swish! I didn't care if it made me look like a poofy libertine. Fuck those military bunks! After plopping down on the bed in victory, I noticed through an open door that the bathroom had a bidet. I usually love the idea of shitting the shit of a wealthy man by getting an aristocratic geyser sprayed up my butt-gullet, but I was worried I might catch some crazy Iraqi disease. I made a mental note to ask someone about the bidets.

Once we got settled, we met our handlers outside and got herded back into the shortbus for the quick jaunt over to meet General Petraeus (the guy who runs the whole kit n' caboodle) at Al-Faw Palace; formerly one of Saddam's 99 palaces, and currently, the headquarters for Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNFI). The things I saw in Al-Faw palace, I'm convinced, will stay with me the rest of my life.

It was simultaneously humbling, hilarious, and horrifying.

Surrounded by a large moat and man-made canal, Chez Saddam is the frontispiece for the entire U.S. invasion of Iraq. As we drove up to the circular drop-off spot in front of an awe-inspiring façade, one of the local Iraqis escorting us said there was something in the moat that was going to freak us out. We immediately took out our video cameras, most of us discovering that we'd used up most of our tape and battery life filming Kuwaiti condos and Paul Wall screw & chop the painful childhood memories of Jamie Kennedy. Finally, there was something interesting to film, and my bitchy camera was complaining in blinky squeaks that it was going to die. Great, I thought. Considering this was fucking IRAQ, if a local says something is going to "freak us out," you can be sure it is bound to be fuckin' Roger-Rabbit-eyeballs freaky. That's like Paris Hilton asking if "you wanna see something skanky?" How can you not expect a double-elimination, round-robin Mexican midget-fisting contest?

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After unloading, we once again walked head-on into that wartime juxtaposition of vanity and efficiency. This time, we passed under a grandiose buttressed archway, and stepped through a huge, ornate door at the front of Saddam's palace only to find our gazes drawn back down to earth by two metal detectors and a small revolving door flanked by troops with M-16s. Who knew a palace resort could look exactly like a TSA line?

Once we passed the security checkpoint, we entered into a massive chamber, its vastness on par with Grand Central Station in NYC. The place was fucking beautiful. Towering, majestic white columns reached up from the floor like stalagmites and fanned out into a 10-story arch that framed the enormous wooden door at the entrance. Marble spiral staircases flanked the massive foyer and corkscrewed up 100 feet to the immense domed ceiling from which hung a correspondingly colossal crystal chandelier. It looked like the most regal of ballrooms... except if you danced in this ballroom, you'd get beheaded.

We ooh'd and ahh'd like schoolchildren. The whole yawning chamber looked liked the set of John Woo's wet dream; I could almost see the doves flying through the semi-automatic gunfire in the climatic showdown. There was so much bling everywhere I thought Paul Wall's head was going to explode.

The officers shepherding us around the premises wanted us constantly aware of two things: one, that Saddam was an evil man who parlayed all of the money accrued from Iraq's rich natural resources into his own private mustache-twirling evil fortune; two, that the arrogant display of opulence was actually just that, a "display." Every soldier in the palace (and mind you, this was the chief operating base out of Baghdad, so that means, technically, a "fuckload") had been fully briefed on the fact that everything in there was "cheaply made." The marble was actually "gypsum" and the chandelier actually contained a lot of "plastic." We were reminded so often, I started to think they were required by law to tell us. It was like the U.S. Government was afraid we would be impressed and think, "Hmmm... I want to be a secular totalitarian dictator, too!" As soon as one of them saw any of our jaws start to drop it was like, "Pfffft! That staircase LOOKS amazing, but it's papier mache made in Tijuana! Hit it with a stick and candy will come out!" Where was Queer Eye for the Iraqi Guy?

Finally, we walked up the spiral staircase ("Look at that! Gypsum! It's really cheap!") to General Petraeus' office. In case you don't remember, that cat runs the whole show. That's right, our ragtag group was going to go hang out with the guy who COMMANDS THE ENTIRE IRAQ WAR. I was dying to know what he looked like. Part of me imagined an ugly Wicked Wolfowitz of the West looking motherfucker, besieged and bespectacled.

When we got upstairs, I saw something that made me simultaneously love and hate America. The second floor had been divided into dozens and dozens of blue carpeted cubicles. We just LOVE cubicles in America. I half-expected the officers with us to talk about the superior quality of the carpet and corresponding right angles. To me, it looked like a typical example of American corporate homogeny, like the McDonald's inside the Taj Mahal.*

One of our handlers ushered us into General Patraeus' office, and we waited for him to arrive. The secretary offered us candy from a bowl. I stuffed a couple baby Snickers into my mouth right as a general arrived. Instead of Petraeus, the guy who showed up was General Anderson.

This dude was a badass. He was the type of guy you want to imagine running shit. He looked like a GI Joe: steely blue eyes, bald pate, square jaw, and a smile that said, "I would have no problem ending your life if given the command." He gave me a metacarpal-crushing handshake as I nodded silently and pointed to my stuffed cheeks like a tardo, by way of explanation. Once again, I was amazed and kind of thrilled by the complete amnesty my brand of civilian idiocy was afforded. I could drool, spittle, and yell out "I like cheese!" and there would be no brig in my future. If I were a soldier, I would probably get court-martialed for shit that was, for me, Tuesday.

General Anderson gave us the little spiel about how we were doing a great service to the country by coming out, and how important it was for us to connect with the young men and women out there. It was the same speech we'd heard over and over, and it was hard to tell if he, or any of these Generals, actually cared personally that we were here. After all, this man committed his entire life to an ideal that none of us could really comprehend. Even more, he was advancing a cause that none of us, in our hearts, actually supported. Yet here we were with mouths full of chocolate ringed with chewy caramel and nougat (what the fuck is a "nougat?"), wearing Uggs (Stu Stone, no lie), pants below the crack (Jamie, as always), eyebrow rings (Casper, the pseudo-thug that he is), grills (guess?), and "Transformer Autobot" t-shirts (yours truly), being told that we're "HEROES!?" It's hard to feel like a hero, or even a patriot, when you hate the president, don't believe in the war, and don't have any effective poopy jokes for those poor comedy-starved kids. Seriously. I felt like a fraud, as an American AND as a comic. Being handed a bunch of plaques and coins wasn't going to convince me otherwise...especially since my shit joke BOMBED in Kuwait and that was all I could think about.

So, of course, we got another medal or plaque or coin (I forget which at this point) and posed for another picture. Casper got in front of everyone and did a breakdancing freeze. The general kicked Casper in his head and he fell over. He laughed about it as did the rest of us, but, let me repeat, HE KICKED CASPER IN HIS HEAD. Casper got up and took the picture standing up instead. Bowl of humility, one spoon?

Can you tell from Casper's face that he just took a boot to the medulla oblongata?

I couldn't help but ask myself, "Did the general kick Casper's skull out of good fun, or was he thinking, 'there's no fucking way I'm risking my life in Baghdad so some B-Boy can strike a pose in front of me!' CLUNK!" Tracy told the general we had to be on our way (i.e., we had to move quickly, so we could sit around and wait somewhere), and we left him and his vicious cranial soccer kicks to peruse the rest of the castle.

We did a quick double-time tour of the 450,000 square foot palace. It was hard not to hate Saddam a little bit more with each extravagant square foot. We were told that Uncle Saddam had only been to THIS particular palace 8 times during his entire tenure as the leader of Iraq. Eight times. 450,000 square feet. I don't know what the mathematical formula regarding that would be, but it definitely EQUALS "Saddam's a dick." Apparently, the chefs were ordered to cook him a four-course dinner EVERY night on the off chance he might show up (what happened with that food, we were soon to find out).

There was a brief moment during the tour of the palace where not only did I viscerally hate Saddam Hussein, but I also became an instantaneously huge fan of the war, America, and beleaguered Bush. This same moment provided me a first-hand glimpse at the evil wrought by the Butcher of Baghdad.

It was when I saw the elevator doors.

These particular elevator doors were made of brass, and they led to the basement of the palace. Although we weren't allowed down there, we were told that this basement was the site of some of the more brutal torture sessions performed by Saddam and his sons, particularly Uday.

When the soldiers took the palace, they were struck by odd Rorshach-style patterns at the place on the outside (not the inside) of the two brass doors where they come together as the elevator closes. The patterns were dense streaks of what looked like paint. Upon closer examination, they noticed that they were smeared fingerprints. Bloody fingerprints. When brass stains, which it doesn't do under normal circumstances, it's permanent. The stain embeds within the brass, so as to become more of an imprint than a stain. The doors were permanently imprinted with the blood of dying and tortured prisoners trying to claw the elevator doors open. Each swipe, each fingerprint, represented another dying Iraqi struggling in vain to escape from torture and inevitable death. The concentration of the stains were like a bloody bell curve: small at the bottom and the top of the doors' length, and much more intense in the middle, consistent with the idea of an average-sized man standing inside the elevator trying to push open the door with two bleeding hands.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt my body run cold. The officers kept saying "allegedly," but it was palpable. Even before I knew exactly what the fuck I was looking at, the area around the doors felt wrong. Everyone gave it a wide berth. Everyone could feel it. Even one of the hardest-looking soldiers escorting us around, hoarsely whispered, "I never like walking past this place." This was one of the few moments in my life where I distinctly remember feeling evil like it was a physical thing. And I've spent time visiting concentration camps, prisons, and Republican fundraisers.**

Tracy broke the throbbing silence by announcing that we had to be on the bus in 0539 hundred seconds or something official sounding like that. Before leaving, there was a bit of fun kitsch on the way out. The U.S. Army placed Saddam's throne right by the entrance/exit to the palace--given to him by another enemy of freedom, Yasser Arafat--so that troops, visiting dignitaries, tourists, passersby (if that's possible), press, etc. could take their picture on it like some perverted version of Mickey Mouse at an amusement park. People were taking turns laying on it, standing on it, and smiling smugly so as to display their superiority over this little brown man who fucked with the wrong Texan. It was a disingenuous, crude, and petulant display. I almost couldn't take 34 pictures of myself on it.

Casper, at Jamie's behest, did a flip off of it, and then did another breakdance freeze, only to slip and hit his head on the armrest. As luck would have it, I was filming him while he did it. He insisted I erase that footage because it would make him look bad. He couldn't have his homeboys see him get played like that. I told him I planned to make 10 grand from America's Funniest Home Videos with it and would give him 50 bucks if I won. He really got upset, snatched the camera, and erased the footage. I would have wrested it back from him and pocketed the tape if I weren't doubled over with laughter at his flustered embarrassment. It was also the second knock to his head that day and the third knock to his ego. I let it go.

We went outside by the bus and were presented with one last example of Saddam's insanity, inanity, evil, and extravagance.

The Saddam bass.

One of the more fascinating things that I've never heard reported on MSNBC was the existence of the fish that lived in the moat around Saddam's palace. These particular fish could literally only be found there, in that little moat and the lakes surrounding the resort. Allegedly, Saddam commissioned the best genetic engineers in Iraq to create a new species of fish called "Saddam bass," an enormous, peculiarly aggressive breed of bass coated with shiny, diamond-shaped scales.

There was debate about the reasoning behind the creation of the creature. Some thought that it was just another ostentatious display of wealth and power that Saddam could flout to friend and enemy alike. Others whispered that the reasons for the genetic mutations were more.... ominous.

As many of you may remember, the tales of torture, beheadings, and imprisonments never matched up with the actual body count compiled when the army took the palace. It was never a huge scandal, and no one seemed to care anyway, but sticklers for war data have always scratched their collective heads at the disparity. Were they buried in remote locations? Were they cremated in mass quantities? How come the records of these acts don't exist?

Enter the fish.

Legend has it that the Saddam Bass developed a taste for blood, and they consumed people, dead or alive, thrown in the moat or the lakes by their captors. Someone confirmed for us that the bass were fed all the wasted food from Saddam's missed dinners, but rumor persisted that some of the more hated prisoners and/or resistant females were chucked into the moat alive with the simple challenge: make it to the other side. If they survived the swim across, they were free to go. Clearly, the odds must have been stacked severely in the house's favor for Saddam to offer that bet. One of the officers escorting us laughed it off, saying it was an old wives' tale that people spread just to make the fish seem more interesting. After seeing the fingerprints, I wasn't sure what to think.

We walked as a group to the entrance bridge over the moat. On cue, one of the local Iraqis gave us bread. As we threw the bread in, the bass started circling underneath us, giant mouths gaping upwards and pushing away rivals for the chunks. The diamond scales looked like tiny mirrors when the fish arched above the surface of the water. Some appeared to be up to five feet long. We watched them, transfixed both by what we were seeing and what we had heard. Jamie was curious about their reputation for eating anything and everything. He threw in a full packet of cigarettes. Within seconds, it was gone. It never resurfaced.

I imagined a frightened and bloody virgin running from the front entrance, holding her nose, jumping in feet first, eyes primed towards the inviting lights across the water. I imagined the first bite might feel like a kiss. The second a tickle. The third a nibble. By the time she was halfway across, I imagine she might be losing her leg, the last thing she hears being a chorus of evil laughter and a whoosh of displaced water in her ears.

I shook it off. Just fish. The only new breed here is the new breed of urban legends bound to circulate out of the Iraq War... right?

Tracy informed us that we were going to be late for our first show in Baghdad so we boarded the bus. I thought of my first time at the Grand Canyon. It was mesmerizing, spectacular, but almost frustrating in its immensity. I couldn't taste it, feel it, fuck it. I could only see it. I could only use my splotchy jelly orbs to receive and process arguably the most incredible natural phenomenon on Earth.

I felt the same way about Saddam's palace.

I wanted to roll some of it around in my mouth like the first sip of wine and digest it slowly. Alas, I just had a few, already fading, snapshots in my memory. I tried my camera again, but she blinked faster and whined only more.

I sat in the back next to Casper, bruised and beaten. I opened up a notepad and took a pen out of my backpack.

I stared ahead, deep into the desert horizon, like when I was a kid trying to spot the end of the Grand Canyon, and I wrote:

NEED GOOD POOP JOKE NOW! with double underlines.

The show was in 45 minutes.

* * *

*Okay, there's not, but it got you fuckers thinking for a second.
**When I get scared, I always try to dismount with a joke.

Posted by Bill Dawes at 4:46 PM