Baghdad, April 14: Iraq has invited honeymooners to stay in Saddam’s luxurious bedroom in a presidential palace located in the war-torn town of Hillah.
The Iraqi cultural heritage officials have offered the former dictator’s bedroom for £150 per night as a part of efforts made to revive the country’s tourism industry.
The presidential palace, which used to stun visitors with its numerous Roman columns, chandeliers and gargantuan bathrooms, has been built on top of a manmade hill overlooking the Euphrates.
Repeated looting has derived the original glamour of the building and its stonework is covered by various graffiti by American troops, Timesonline reported.
The bedrooms of the palace need to be revamped so that they can be used by tourists who have begun visiting the country since the fall of Saddam in 2003.
Some 1,000 locals visit the palace every day and pay a small fee to look at the building, picnic in the grounds and see Saddam’s date tree, which is surrounded by a concrete wall and only the dictator was allowed to eat its fruit.
“I never would have dreamt that one day Saddam would be gone and people could come here,” said Hussam Kadhim, 44, the manager. “Before, they would have been arrested.”
Iraq has restored many buildings from Saddam’s time. The houses of Saddam’s special guard for instance have been refurbished and turned into luxury hotel rooms.
“We expect these tourists will convey a positive message to their citizens back home that the situation in Iraq is good,” said a spokesman for the tourism and antiquities ministry, Abdul Zahra al-Telagani.
—-Agencies