Would You Buy a Used Yacht From This Man?

The imploding global financial system has shrunk economies, curtailed spending, and forced scores towards unemployment lines.

The shadow of doom is widespread indeed, even if you're in the yacht market.

But if megayachts are your thing, there's a steal to be had. And this beauty has had only one previous owner.

The Iraqi government announced this week that the Ocean Breeze, Saddam Hussein's former 270-foot floating palace, is up for sail -- and it can be yours for the bargain basement price of $30 million.

The French government ruled that Iraq is the rightful owner of the vessel, after a legal battle with Jordan, which had claimed the yacht as its own.

Despite the deflated price, the Ocean Breeze has not attracted much interest yet.

"Given the current economic climate, clients are not falling over themselves to make the purchase)," said an executive for the legal firm Cohen-Amir Aslani-Marseillan-D'Ornamo & Associates, according to Reuters.

Perhaps because, by megayacht standards, the Breeze is downright threadbare.

Built in 1981 in Denmark, the vessel only has one helicopter-landing pad, not two, like recently commissioned models. The yachts' missile launcher has been disarmed for sale. And let's not even get into the 1970' décor.

Nonetheless, the $30 million will buy you gold-tap bathrooms, bulletproof windows, a theater, a mosque, several pools, and a secret escape passage. And -- who knows? -- maybe there are some W.M.D.'s on board that could be easily resold on the nuclear black market.

by Alfonso Serrano F.

Photograph of the Ocean Breeze by Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images