Odai Lived "High On The Hog" ...

[SixTGunr]

ALONG THE TIGRIS RIVER, Iraq — Judging by the playboy lifestyle Saddam Hussein's son Odai apparently lived in his huge palace, the everyday miseries of life in Iraq weren't exactly the most pressing concern on his mind.





Nestled alongside and offering a beautiful view of the Tigris River, Odai's palace — which Fox News toured earlier this week — is actually a small city. There is the palace compound, of course, but also huge avenues, traffic lights and a hospital. There's even a zoo.

Security cameras are everywhere, or at least were before the bombs came. There is a special Republican Guard barracks next door to the home of the brutal former dictator's son, whose fate, like that of his father, remains unclear.

The scene is more out of Beverly Hills than a war-ravaged Middle Eastern state, with enough bad taste to make the tackiest designer proud. Examples abound in the nearby gym, a home for Odai's concubine.

The palace itself offers dozens of bedrooms, closets bigger than most homes, elaborate furnishings, beveled mirrors, the finest bone china, a racquetball court, wet suits, ski suits and enough guns to equip a small army.

There's also the hole in the roof where a well-placed 1,000-pound laser-guided bomb came ripping through. It cut through three stories of the structure, creating a huge hole and shredding concrete slabs.

Past the main house is an indoor swimming pool. While many Iraqis suffered under the U.N. sanctions that sharply cut their country's foreign earnings, there's no question the 39-year-old resident of this little slice of Iraqi heaven lived a life of fast cars, expensive liquor and easy women.

The inside of his master bedroom looks like the Playboy Mansion. There is evidence of a hunger for alcohol, drugs and lots and lots of women. There are also hundreds of photo albums — mostly of Odai himself.

His prosthesis is here as well, a lasting memory of a 1996 assassination attempt that left him with a bullet in his spine and forced him to walk with a cane.

But that leaves plenty of room for the hundreds of videos, as well as bottles of Cuervo 1800 tequila, Danska vodka, cognac and Corona and Miller beers.

There's Dom Perignon, 40-year-old French wines, some very good brandy, even more good whiskey, boxes of personalized Cuban cigars, six bags of heroin, boxes of pills and medicines of various kinds, ginseng sexual fortifiers, Prozac and an HIV screening test.

Odai's obsession with sex is evident everywhere. There are paintings of naked women and bundles of Internet printouts of what appeared to be prostitutes, complete with handwritten ratings of each. One black book lists hundreds of women's names and phone numbers.

There are also UNICEF boxes, with kids' school supplies meant for the children of Iraq.

There are multiple pictures of Odai's days as head of Iraq's Olympic Committee, where he earned a vicious reputation as someone who would jail athletes who failed to perform to his standards.

And the guns. Lots of guns. The house is filled with boxes of handguns and piles of ammunition, plus grenade launchers, shotguns, and automatic weapons from various countries — a gold-plated PPK, revolvers, rifles never opened, carbines — the best of everything.

That's not to mention the underground parking garage, and the holding pen behind that house that kept two cheetahs, five lion cubs and a young bear. Three German shepherds who guarded the compound have been adopted by U.S. soldiers, who feed them military rations.

For the wilder animals, soldiers have been throwing in sheep from a nearby pen. A feeding on Sunday "looked like something from the National Geographic Channel," said one American soldier.


Six

[berto64]

"High on the Hog?" Well for the way the 'pig' treated folks, hope he enjoyed it while it lasted.

I thought that alchohol and drugs and illicit sex were against the little piggies religion. Guess he wasn't very devout to his religion, huh? If he is alive and is located, I say we fry him in pig grease.

berto

[SixTGunr]

Sounds like a winner Berto ...

Six