Karl Bernd Esser claims on his company's Internet website that the bunker, built in 1982 to the highest specifications, has a total area of 1,800 square metres (19.370 square feet).

It cost 66 million dollars to build, but proved its worth in the 1991 Gulf War, withstanding aerial bombardment.

The website of the company he works for, Sheltex, shows pictures said to be of a command centre in the bunker as well as the presidential bedroom, part of the air-conditioning system and a hideaway.

Esser told Germany's ZDF television in a recent report that the walls were three metres thick, could withstand temperatures up to 300 degrees Celsius and survive anything short of a direct hit from a nuclear weapon the size of that which destroyed Hiroshima.

Two underground passages lead directly to the Tigris river.

Esser was not immediately contactable Tuesday, but told ZDF that he had no regrets about designing the bunker for the Iraqi leader.

"Bunkers don't shoot people," he said. "It is a secure living space to NATO standards and bomb-proof."

At the time the facility was built Saddam was not seen as the ogre the United States depicts him as today -- in fact, the West saw him as a counterweight to the fundamentalist Iranian regime next door.

The Sheltex website claims it plans, builds and delivers bunkers worldwide and is the only company supplying them to NATO, US, German, Swedish and Swiss standards.

The site includes a design for a two-level bunker of 400 square metres and capable of holding 60 to 90 people.

It could withstand a direct hit by a conventional 250-kilogram bomb, while protecting its occupants from the effects of a nuclear, chemical or biological attack, the accompanying text explains.

The design shows air-conditioning systems, self-sufficient water and power supplies, living space including a kitchen, dining room, toilets and showers, an emergency exit, a command and control room and a decontamination suite.

SPACE.WIRE