Snip from a New York Times story by James Glanz:
In Taji and Miqdadiya, both north of Baghdad, the bulky carcasses of tanks, armored personnel carriers, mobile radio shacks and ungainly amphibious vehicles go on for acres, gutted and mismatched weaponry purchased from every country that would do business with Saddam Hussein – which at times, directly or indirectly, seemed to include most of the world’s major arms dealers, including the United States and Britain.
Scattered more thinly are the traces of grandiose projects like the supergun, nicknamed Big Babylon and designed for Mr. Hussein by a brilliant Canadian engineer named Gerald V. Bull, who was eventually assassinated for his trouble, probably by Israeli or Western intelligence agents.
The oversize palaces Mr. Hussein compulsively built are more familiar as visible monuments to his rule. But while the palaces have a decidedly Dr. Seuss feel, the weaponry seems equal parts Jules Verne, power-mad dictator and adolescent boy.
“I would say that Saddam’s regime was not a model of rationality,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based organization that has studied Mr. Hussein’s weaponry. “He did in some respects share Hitler’s fascination with wonder weapons.”
Link. Image: “Max Becherer/Polaris, for The New York Times — Sabah al-Khafaji with scrap from the supergun, at his bus factory in Iskandariya, 30 miles south of Baghdad.”
Reader comment: Gil Forsyth says
Regarding the reference to Gerald Bull’s Supergun — I ran across a really great write-up of the project on Damn Interesting during the summer: Link.