If you’ve got a spare $30 million lying around (despite the tough economic times) and are in the market for a yacht, you’re in luck.

A super-opulent model with gold faucets, several swimming pools, a helipad and even a rocket launcher is yours for the taking, if you don’t mind that it previously belonged to one of the world’s most brutal dictators.

The 270-foot Ocean Breeze was built in 1981 and was one of several owned by ex-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi government has decided to sell the boat in an effort to earn a little extra income. Apparently declining revenues resulting from the falling price of oil have depleted the country’s coffers.

The Ocean Breeze, which is moored at the French port of Nice, was the subject of an ownership dispute for the last couple of years which was recently decided by a French court. A firm part-owned by the king of Jordan claimed that the yacht was its property, but the court ruled that it should be returned to the Iraqi government.

Though prospective buyers may be scared away by the yacht’s tentative price tag and its, well, negative associations, the upside is that Hussein never apparently stayed onboard, for fear of a government coup while he was away.

Link: Reuters, BBC, Wall Street Journal

By Karen Elowitt for PeterGreenberg.com.

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Believe or not, intrepid travelers have begun voyaging to Iraq. See for yourself in our slideshow, The Other Iraq: Americans in Kurdistan.