BAGHDAD, Iraq -- At a bomb-cratered airport where travelers once took to the skies, Iraqis will one day send their spirits soaring in prayer from Saddam Hussein's latest earthly monument to immortality.
Ostracized abroad and feared at home, the Iraqi president has gone on a building jag lately -- commissioning palaces, bridges, clock towers, memorials, and, now, what he hopes will be the world's biggest mosque, a space-age wonder that Hussein may name the Grand Saddam Mosque in his honor.
The marvel of the mosque, whose minarets would tower higher than the Washington Monument, is one of many projects inspired and mandated by Mr. Hussein in the gloomy years of rebuilding amid crippling United Nations economic sanctions since the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
The futuristic, gargantuan design -- a floating, domed mosque surrounded by water and eight immense minarets, shops, and a library, museum, and school for Koran students -- has been compared to a space station, a concert hall, even a disco.
"It will be the eighth wonder of the world," effused one of its government-appointed architects, Dr. Hussam Al-Rawi, head of the department of architecture at Baghdad University's College of Engineering.
"It will just shock you. The size of it will be like a mountain. It will
be amazing," added Dr. Al-Rawi, a member of the eight-man design team named by Mr. Hussein. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime project for an architect."
The planned mosque joins a growing list of projects undertaken in Baghdad since the U.N. slapped sanctions on Iraq for invading Kuwait in 1990. They include a completed two-tiered bridge over the Tiris River, a grand riverside government palace, and the giant red-and-white striped Saddam Tower with skyview restaurants and TV transmitters overlooking the city.
Much of the building in recent years has been to repair and replace infrastructure destroyed by U.S.-led bombers during the gulf war. They hit the Al Muthana Airport in Baghdad, site of the planned mosque, turning it into an inferno.
"They're making a lot of grand projects that aren't needed," said one Western diplomat familiar with Iraq. "They want to show they are still strong and that sanctions won't stop them -- that they won't just stay still. They will move ahead."
The move, however, has backfired, in some respects.
In spite of Mr. Hussein's recent formal recognition of the independence of Kuwait, the U.N. Security Council refused to lift the sanctions. The United States led denial, saying that Mr. Hussein is more interested in building large-scale projects than improving the lives of the Iraqi general public.
The continued embargo may delay construction of the mosque, which will depend in part on imported materials, but the mosque itself appears intended more as a hedge against the demoralizing effects of the sanctions.
"I think it stems from this whole situation," said one of the architects, asking that his name not be used.
"By itself, it's a big challenge. In your worst times, you often can do the most challenging things," the architect said.
Mr. Hussein's original idea for the mosque was to emulate the past but create a unique mosque that would inspire the future. He envisioned at least four minarets, but when he saw the first architectural designs, he instructed the team to come back with a mosque that had eight, which architects say is unprecedented.
Construction is to begin in 1995, and it could be completed as early as 2000. A lake will be carved where the airport now stands, and it will be fed by waters from the Tigris.
The central circular domed building will stand on pillars, and it will rise from the water to a height of 330 feet, with staggered prayer levels starting at about 80 feet, according to the plans.
Covered bridges 300 feet long will emanate like spokes from the hub to the four tallest minarets -- each separated by one of the shorter towers, which will rise about 490 feet from the water. The main four anchoring minarets will be 656 feet high -- 100 feet taller than the Washington Monument.
At a time when ordinary Iraqis are selling their TVs, appliances and clothes to buy food to survive the devastating sanctions, government officials make no apologies for spending state funds on grand designs.
"These are all made with locally oriented materials," explained Iraq's minister of trade, Mohammed Salah Al-Rawi, in a recent interview. "We produce cement, but we cannot export it because of the U.N. sanctions. We can't export it even to buy milk.