Hi All,
Several people asked me about an earlier posting I made regarding the
crushing of Saddam's car collection, so here it is:
An article appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer about April/May,
recounting the destruction of Saddam's car collection following the fall
of Baghdad. According to the article, Saddam had a good collection of
classic American and European cars, which were housed in one of his many
palaces. When Baghdad fell and looting was rampant, Iraqis were raiding
the palace and trying to steal the cars, all of which were "cherry" and
carefully maintained with the keys in the ignitions. The US officer in
charge of the palace was worried the cars would be stolen and used as
car bombs, so he ordered the entire collection crushed by army tanks.
The article relates one particular story of a soldier who was ordered to
run his tank over a beautiful 55 Chevrolet. It broke his heart to do
so, since he was from Southern California where those cars are
especially treasured. But an order is an order, so he flattened the car
in about 5 seconds, and the rest of the collection met a similar fate
(the article mentions classic Rolls Royces, Mercedes Benzes, but no
other American cars by make). Their flattened hulks were then stacked
outside the palace entrance to form barriers.
This story was also mentioned in a column in "Old Cars Weekly," so I
went to the Inquirer website, did a search and downloaded the article.
Wish I had made a copy. If anybody has further details about this
travesty, let us know. It is sad to hear about these cars being lost,
but it's really nothing compared to the many innocent lives - both US
and Iraqi - that have been and are still being lost in this conflict.
Tony in Idaho
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