Mood:  blue
Topic: The Places
Saddam had 27 palaces throughout Iraq. He moved from palace to palace in a paranoid attempt to stay one step ahead of potential assassins.

When the Americans arrived in Baghdad, the U.S. military quickly captured the 600-foot-long Presidential Palace located on the banks of the Tigris River. Because this palace was one of the few that was not bombed during the invasion of Iraq, it quickly became the seat of the U.S. occupation and to this day it still serves as the de-facto American Embassy.

When the Americans arrived at the palace, they found four 30-foot-tall busts of Saddam on the roof of the four-story palace. In late 2003, the U.S. government removed them. Oddly, the U.S. government did not destroy the busts. They now stand far from their original home in a Stonehenge-like setting in a quiet part of the Green Zone.

And in other news . . . the New York Times had a nice, short editorial about Iraq yesterday.