Iraqis to Hear Ode to Hussein Loud and Clear

BAGHDAD —  As the clock in the 150-foot tower began chiming the tune from a popular anthem to President Saddam Hussein, a group of schoolgirls provided the words.

“There is a covenant between us and you,” the girls recited dutifully--a line from the song familiar to almost all 22 million Iraqis.

The Baghdad clock tower, with its seven exhibition halls, gold-plated statues of falcons and many portraits of Hussein, plays the song on the hour 24 times a day.

Until now, the paean to Hussein could be heard only within a three-mile radius of the tower.

But that will soon change, on Hussein’s orders.

Engineers are working to link the chimes to air-raid siren speakers so that all of Baghdad’s 5 million people can hear the tune around the clock.

“The basic idea is that the chimes of this clock should be heard all over Baghdad. Work is in progress, and we expect it to finish soon,” said Waleed Hummadi, director of the Baghdad Clock, one of the capital’s main landmarks.

Work on the monument started in 1986 but stopped after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of neighboring Kuwait, which triggered the Persian Gulf War. Construction resumed in 1992 after Iraq’s defeat, and the building with the tower atop it was completed in 1996.

Schools arrange visits to the site, whose entrance is adorned with gold-plated inscriptions of Hussein telling of his pride that the tower was built despite a lack of funds, a shortage caused by sanctions the United Nations imposed on Iraq after the Kuwaiti invasion.

Everything in the monument celebrates or pertains to the president’s life and deeds.

“Those four rifles waving with the pendulum are made of pure gold and belong to four martyrs who fell in defense of Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war,” said Mohammed Zuheir, a guide. In fact, the rifles were real weapons plated in gold for display at the tower.

For the hundreds of girls and boys touring the Baghdad Clock, a visit echoes what textbooks say about their leader. Documents written in blood hang on the walls and tell the children about the loyalty Iraqis across the nation feel toward Hussein.

“We bring them here to prove to our pupils how the people love their president,” said a teacher, Muna Kadhim.