On April 26 - April 29, 2004 I attended a field sanitation course at Camp Victory, Baghdad. The camp is located on the western edge of the city near Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) and includes the impressive Al Faw Palace. The palace was the former home of the late Uday Hussein. Now the palace is the site of the coalition forces headquarters and the center of Camp Victory. The following history was found inside the palace:

The city of Faw lies on the Al Faw Peninsula in the far southeast of the Basra Province. Water canals from the Shat Al-Arab River turned the land into an agriculturally rich region. Its oil facilities made it one of Iraq's major oil exporting ports prior to the 1984 Iran-Iraq War. Because of its strategic and geographic importance, it became a target for Iranian control. In February, 1986 Iranian units capture the port of Al Faw. Saddam Hussein vowed to eliminate and remove the enemy "at all cost" and in April of 1988 the Iraqi military suceeded in regaining the Al Faw Peninsula. The palace was built following th 1991 Gulf War in honor of the soldiers who freed the city of Faw from Iranian control. All over the walls inside is written "Victory and glory to the warriors who freed the city from the enemy, the Persians."