Saddam Hussein Once Burned His Son's Entire Exotic Car Collection
"Let that be a lesson not to murder people at dinner, Uday."
When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and deposed Saddam Hussein, it was hard not to be transfixed by the images of his family's once-ostentatious lifestyle in ruins. Among the ill-gotten treasures abandoned was the extensive exotic car collection of eldest son Uday Hussein, which featured dozens of rare cars like a Ferrari F40 and a Lamborghini LM002.
But thanks to a new account of Saddam Hussein's final days published in the New York Post, we now know that collection was once many times bigger—before the former dictator burned the whole damn thing to punish Uday for shooting and killing several people at a dinner party in the mid 1990s.
Author Will Bardenwerper talked to several members of the military police squad assigned to guard Saddam in the years between his capture in late 2003 and his hanging in 2006 for his upcoming book, The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid. In it, he describes the quasi-friendship that developed between the guards and their charge in the unlikeliest of circumstances.
As both sides whiled away the hours by talking about their families, Saddam shared a story that's simultaneously relatable and completely incomprehensible to any parent out there.
Iraqi police pose next to a pink Ferrari Testarossa and a black Porsche, which belonged to Uday Hussein, at police headquarters in Baghdad on December 8, 2010.
As the oldest son, Uday Hussein was Iraq's heir apparent until his erratic, violent behavior—including murdering his father's personal valet in the middle of another dinner party in 1988—led Saddam to briefly sentence him to death before expelling him from the country for a few years. After the 1995 shooting that wounded Saddam's half-brother, the former tyrant concluded that his son hadn't learned his lesson and tried a different tactic—burning his entire car collection:
"I was very angry with him so I burned all his cars," Saddam told the guards, referring to Uday’s obscenely large collection of luxury automobiles, including hundreds of Rolls-Royces, Ferraris and Porsches. "Laughing wildly, the former dictator recalled how he gleefully watched the inferno," writes Bardenwerper. It reminded one guard of "a Jerry Springer episode on steroids."
Hey, if that doesn't get your kid's attention, nothing will.
For more weird details on Saddam's imprisonment, including his penchant for Cohiba cigars, breakfast requirements bordering on OCD, and secret love for Mary J. Blige, check out Bardenwerper's book when it's released next week.