Made in Sweden: Saddam Hussein’s bullet-proof windows
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Newspaper Borås Tidning revealed at the weekend that a Gothenburg firm was given the task in 1990 of supplying bullet-proof windows for one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Baghdad.
With Skanska responsible for the construction, the palace was to be an all Swedish affair.
A local army regiment in Borås was charged with testing the reinforced glass.
Heavy weapons were hauled in to a secret testing zone and the windows were pummeled with all manner of heavy ammunition.
Finally, in the autumn of 1990, the mixture of glass and plastic was deemed satisfactory and testing was completed.
Shortly after Iraq had invaded Kuwait, a team of fitters was sent to Baghdad to mount the bulky 6 x 4 metre panes.
But it was all in vain. The Gulf War broke out in January 1991 and the palace that Skanska built was bombed into a smouldering ruin.
The Swedish testers of Saddam Hussein’s bulletproof glass had made the same mistake as the dictator himself: they failed to factor in an aerial bombardment.
