Post date: Jan 16, 2012 2:32:17 PM
Iraqi investors transform Camp Bucca, an American prison with a notorious reputation among Iraqis in the southern city of Basra, into a hotel where oil investors and executives can stay at trailers once used by the U.S. military.
BASRA, IRAQ (REUTERS) -Sand bags, cement blocks and coiled barb wire were the first impression guests to one of Basra's newest ventures saw, as a former US prison took on a new face as a hotel.
Hoping to make business and lure foreign investors working in Basra's giant oilfields, an Iraqi engineering company turned Camp Bucca, a former American prison with a notorious reputation among Iraqis in the southern city of Basra, into a hotel providing guests with a high level of security in a country which is plagued by daily attacks.
Built by the US military in 2003 in the southern desert near Kuwait, the sprawling 740-acre compound was the largest such US facility in Iraq.
Camp Bucca once housed as many as 14,000 detainees, the majority of whom were Iraqis held for months or years without any charges made against them and with no way of defending themselves in court. Some were kept in steel shipping containers with a toilet and air conditioning.
It was emptied and shut down in September 2009.
The Kufan Group -- the developers and operators of the Camp Bucca development project -- took over the camp from the Iraqi government at an auction. In a 990-million-dollar project which is still ongoing, they hope to turn it into a commercial venture featuring a hotel, a logistics centre and a storage area to serve the nearby port of Umm Qasr.
"We took it as an investment project to turn it into a city or a commercial and industrial compound with the aim of serving the city of Basra and providing supplementary facilities to Umm Qasr Port, including goods storage and distribution facilities and other logistic facilities," said Maythem al-Assadi, President of Kufan Group.
Apart from the refurbishment and redecoration of 1,500 trailers which were once used to accommodate US military guards, not much else has yet been altered in the sprawling, dusty compound.
"There are a large number of facilities in the northern section, which can be used including 1,500 semi-furnished rooms, which we have turned into hotel rooms and we furnished them in a way suiting modern times as well as commercial and civil use," Assadi said.
The hotel was scheduled to open in full in January 2012, but work on the compound is still incomplete and the date has pushed forward. It was partially opened on November 25, 2011 to accommodate businessmen and executives from oil and oil-service companies participating in a gas and oil conference held in Basra. The city's two main hotels were fully booked at the time.
"The site is very secure and has distinguished hotel services. It has all office requirements including high-speed Internet and all other office needs. Security is very high and the infrastructure of the site has high security specifications in addition to the presence of two security companies that protect the site around the clock," Assadi said.
Bucca was opened in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004, when shocking pictures of US soldiers abusing detainees at the west Baghdad prison helped fuel a bloody insurgency.
Assadi said the idea of opening a hotel in a facility formerly used as a prison was first received with mockery and discomfort, but eventually the mood changed.
"Many people when they entered the place and knew there was a prison here they got depressed, but when they got acquainted with the services and they saw the site and mixed with others and listened to the future plan for the city, their opinions changed 100 percent -- people became happy and assured," he said.
Basra is Iraq's second largest city with international commercial links, but there is not much hotel accommodations in town.
Despite sitting on top of Iraq's largest oil reservoirs, the city remains decrepit -- beggars crowd intersections demanding money from drivers while women hold out babies seeking alms.