Al-Musayyib is not only a production and distribution centre for deadly chemical agents. Saddam Hussein's scientists there have been busy perfecting a number of processes aimed at subjugating his own people.
Once the novelty of gassing the Kurds wore off, Iraq looked for a less internationally provocative but equally permanent solution to the Kurdish question. It found the answer in the unlikely location of Spain's Costa Blanca.
In the last 20 years, millions of ordinary Spaniards have been displaced from their ancestral lands by the construction of huge golf complexes covering millions of acres. Protesting voices are met by a wall of silence punctuated only by the gentle hiss of sprinklers.
Saddam is clearly impressed with the idea, as the US surveillance photograph shows. The Iraqis have bulldozed no less than five giant fairways, and closer inspection reveals the foundations of a giant clubhouse in the Hussein-neo-Babylonian style.
Golf experts agree that the completed course, covering the sites of at least 20 Kurdish settlements, will offer a moderately-challenging par 72 with excellent bar facilities and the prospect of year-round sun.