“Bureaucracy and corruption hinder the restoration of these palaces to turn them into tourist complexes or heritage centers,” he said. Saddam, during his more than two decades in power in the oil-rich country, had many monuments and palaces built while cheerfully defying the Western embargo of the 1990s. In the turmoil of war, many were damaged in fighting or used as bases by US and other foreign forces. The sumptuous Al-Faw complex — encircled by an artificial lake — has since 2021 housed the private American University, built by an Iraqi investor. While the main palace had survived relatively intact, he said, “all of the other buildings ... were really destroyed.

Source: Libya Today February 10, 2022 01:56 UTC