An Eerie Scene at Aerie That Hussein Never Used

God knows what compelled Saddam Hussein to build a presidential suite at an ancient Christian monastery, whether it was the stunning view or the pursuit of some deeper meaning in life.

After a brief visit to St. Matthew Monastery in 1980, Hussein ordered a complete renovation of the 4th century Orthodox Christian complex and the addition of luxury accommodations for himself.

Hussein never returned. He left his two-story retreat locked, and history to contemplate whether things in Iraq might have been different if the dictator had spent some quiet time thinking atop Maqlub Mountain.

Iraqi troops withdrew from the mountain Tuesday night, and Kurdistan Democratic Party fighters quickly seized it with a U.S. Special Forces unit.

The Kurds called it their greatest victory in three weeks of war as they looked down through a brown haze on Iraqi-controlled Mosul, the country’s third-largest city.

A column of half a dozen Kurdish fighters marched through the monastery’s gate Wednesday afternoon, ducked under the two 2-by-4s nailed across Hussein’s front door and saw him staring at them from two portraits on the walls.

They pulled the framed pictures down, smashed the glass with their Kalashnikov assault rifles and angrily tore the images of a serene Hussein to pieces.

The Kurdish and U.S. forces reached the top of Maqlub Mountain about 7 p.m. Tuesday, after several days of bombing broke the Iraqis’ hold on high ground that was central to Hussein’s dominance of the region.

The government forces on Maqlub included elements of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency, one of several weapons Hussein used to strike fear in his people and watch over his enemies.

From the mountaintop, they used radar dishes, radio antennas and eavesdropping equipment, said Kurdish commander Biebo Abdullah Mahmud. “They were here to spy on people and listen to telephone calls,” he said. “That’s why we can consider this mountain, and this base, as a very strategic place.”

The Iraqis took most of their equipment, including artillery, with them but did leave behind three truckloads of files that are being studied for any useful intelligence, Mahmud said.

One document was an Iraqi commander’s final orders to blow up a nearby bridge, then retreat to the mountaintop, in the event the front line crumbled, Mahmud added. If their foes kept advancing, Hussein’s forces were to retreat to the city of Mosul and make their final stand, according to Mahmud.

Kurdish fighters captured the senior Iraqi general and some of his men Saturday when they were trying to destroy a steel-girder bridge as ordered, the Kurdish commander said.

The Iraqi troops have since pulled back to a new front-line village just outside Mosul, which is still firmly under the control of Hussein loyalists and his army. Mahmud and his fighters are eager to take the city, but say they won’t attack until ordered by U.S. military commanders.

For weeks the United States has been wary of allowing the Kurdish fighters to move too far south. Such movement would anger Turkey, which fears it could trigger unrest among that nation’s 12 million Kurds and deny Turks access to Kirkuk, Iraq’s richest oil city.

“The rational thinking is not to do anything daft,” said one Kurdish official of Kirkuk. “But that is countered by the weight of history and the passion we have about the situation.”

As American troops strengthened their control of Baghdad on Wednesday afternoon, a U.S. B-52 flew high above Mosul, waiting for new targets in a city that has been heavily bombed over the last three weeks.

Airstrikes on Maqlub did not damage the monastery or disturb the prayers of three Orthodox monks and Bishop Loqa Shaya, who reside there, Father Polus Bahnam said.

“We were living in the same way before the war, during the war and we will remain the same after the war,” said Bahnam, 71, who is blind and has been a monk at the monastery for 42 years. “We were only hearing planes over us, and bombardment, like other people. We have nothing to do with these things. We are just busy with going to the church and praying for a peaceful life for all people.”

The monastery was built in AD 363, two to three centuries before the birth of Islam in what is now Saudi Arabia.

An official history of the monastery says it was opened by a Persian king named Sanhareeb to honor St. Matthew. After the saint cured the monarch’s daughter, Sarah, of leprosy, according to the history, she and Sanhareeb’s son became Christians, prompting the king to have them burned to death.

But the earth then cracked open, the king fell gravely ill and St. Matthew cured him, the history says. Sanhareeb expressed his thanks by being baptized, along with his soldiers, and ordering the monastery built.

More than 1,600 years later, Hussein arrived and took a liking to the place of cool breezes and breathtaking vistas. He stayed about 90 minutes during the 1980 visit, and ordered the renovations and construction of his two-story suite at government expense, Bahnam said.

The work took four years. By then, Iraq was locked in a ruinous war with Iran, and Hussein never came back to the mountain. His suite fell into disrepair after the army hit it with an artillery shell during an offensive against Kurdish rebels in 1991.

Birds took advantage of the shattered windows, and their droppings now soil the coffee table in the president’s sitting room. When a Kurdish fighter pulled Hussein’s portrait from a nearby wall, a family of eight geckos living underneath scattered for new cover.

Eight crystal ashtrays, covered in a thick layer of dust, sat stacked in the living room. On the couches alone, there was seating for 15 people. There were chairs for many more.

Hussein apparently planned to have company at his retreat. Perhaps it would have been intelligence officers from the listening post just up the road.

Bahnam said that he chatted with Hussein but that the president never mentioned why he wanted his own accommodations at the monastery. Whether for pleasure, or plots, the monastery’s doors were open to Hussein without question.

“We consider this place a house of God, so everyone is welcome here,” the monk said.

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Times staff writer Jeffrey Fleishman in Sulaymaniyah contributed to this report.