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By Evan Osnos
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 11, 2003

BAGHDAD -- Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, the stern public voice of the Iraqi regime, is fond of ballroom dancing with his wife, as the many snapshots tucked along the frame of his bedroom mirror suggest.

Someone in Saddam Hussein's household is a fan of Britney Spears. Or so it seems, based on the magazine clippings of the teen pop star taped to the wall in one of the Iraqi president's palaces.


When Iraq's top leaders vanished in the face of a U.S. invasion, they left behind palaces and homes that are being searched by U.S. forces. A walk through the ransacked remains of two such compounds is a window into the lives of two men who dominated life in Iraq for a generation.

The Aziz home, in contrast with Hussein's austerely formal palaces, has the look of a suburban trophy house, tucked behind a sculptured hedge in a nice neighborhood on Baghdad's east side.

The heavy, carved-wood double doors open onto a dining room with cases of fine tea sets and silverware. On the dining room table, as if set aside for hanging, are two large photographs of Aziz and his wife dancing cheek to cheek.

The kitchen is spacious and looks lived-in. Appliances sit out on the counters beside several Christian icons and Virgin Mary figurines, totems of the faith that always set Aziz apart in his overwhelmingly Muslim country. A bulletin board is layered with snapshots from Aziz family life: celebrating Christmas, playing in a snowstorm, visiting the seashore. And of course, Aziz beaming beside his friend and mentor, Hussein.

In a back corner of the home is Aziz's refuge, a study full of books, movies and personal items from a lifetime of travel and politics. For a man who has voiced some of Iraq's sharpest denunciations of the United States, his library shows a remarkable appetite for the words and images of the adversary.

Fresh stacks of carefully set-aside Vanity Fair magazines, with Sean Penn, Jude Law and other stars on the covers. Old issues of Foreign Affairs, the journal of New York's Council on Foreign Relations, dating to 1981.

He has volumes by statesmen--Henry Kissinger on diplomacy, and by dictators--Mao Tse-tung on revolution. He has a well-turned copy of Bob Woodward's "Veil," an investigation of the CIA, and a seemingly new edition of Judith Miller's book on militant Islam, "God has Ninety-Nine Names."

He has biographies of his enemies--George H.W. Bush, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and former Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan. And he has the pronouncements of his oldest partner, Hussein.

His books also include a collection of newspaper articles from the 1991 Persian Gulf war and an investigation by former United Nations weapons inspector Richard Butler of Iraq's weapons programs.

`Josie and the Pussycats'

His taste in movies is equally eclectic, with hundreds of DVDs ranging from "Josie and the Pussycats" to the "Godfather" series.

The room has been turned upside down by Marines as they search for any documents that might pry a lid off another dark vault of Iraqi history. On the floor lies a mound of old matchbooks, carefully gathered from restaurants around the world--Paris, Amsterdam, Damascus.

Up the stairs in the modest master bedroom, a queen-size bed sits across from a woman's dresser, with a small sitting area nearby. The dancing pictures have curled out from the edge of the mirror frame, as if they had been there for years. In the bathroom, unopened boxes of Calvin Klein cologne sit beside Old Spice shaving cream. On the dresser are two seemingly prized photos in fine gold frames: one of Saddam Hussein alone and the other of Aziz and Hussein together, the raven-haired president kissing his silver-haired spokesman on the cheek.

Overall, the house seems hurriedly abandoned. Some rooms are empty, as if a moving job was only half-completed. Other rooms hold furniture draped with bedsheets, as if it were the home of a vacationer who intended to return. There are no cars in the garage.

Presidential palace grand

Where Aziz's home is adorned with personal effects, Hussein's palace is trimmed with sober emblems of power. Only a five-minute drive from Aziz's house, the palace is a complex of five houses overlooking the Tigris River, each house grander than the next. A satellite-guided bomb destroyed part of the compound but left much intact. The lawn is freshly trimmed, and the flowers are in bloom.

The architecture is a motley mix of neoclassical columns and Muslim mushroom-shaped roofs.

Past the engraved-relief bust of Hussein on the front wall of one home is a ground floor that houses a vast sitting room of blue velvet couches and chairs. A grand double-barreled marble staircase is complemented by a two-story marble mural of Hussein and his family, a full-color stone mosaic of a casual family pose: smiling father in the middle, his hands on the shoulder of a young girl; wife by his side; sons as matching bookends, one in a business suit, the other in short sleeves, each standing beside a young woman.

Across the vast hall is a dental office, fully appointed with reclining chair, spotlight and spitting sink. Down the hall is an optician's studio, the eye chart in English letters still mounted on the wall. Past that is the salon, with three beautician's chairs and magazine covers of pop star Spears pasted beside the mirror.

At the rear of the house, another vast, empty room faces the sweeping lawn overlooking the river. The furniture, it seems, has been removed, but the mirrors have not, and they gaze back from virtually every wall.

By appearances, this house seems to have been the province mostly of women and children. Plastic trucks, play telephones and other toys can be found in nearly every room. In the master bedroom hangs a series of baby photos, leading past a treadmill and a walk-in safe, into a walk-in closet filled floor to ceiling with designer women's clothes and scores of shoes. A television set sits across from the gilded, king-size bed, with a 10-minute exercise tape waiting to be played.

Next door is the study, where a bookcase of Arabic titles sits across from a simple desk. A tape deck lies empty beside a cassette of "The Sound of Music." On a shelf near the door is an empty cardboard box for a digital hand-held copy of the Koran.

Hedges carved with spirals and other designs lead to the house that bore the brunt of the bomb's blast. The explosives reduced much of its facade to rubble, yet they did not destroy the white marble bust of Hussein that sits atop a pedestal in the living room.

Also undamaged are more children's rooms upstairs. One room is overflowing with stuffed toys--the Tasmanian Devil, Popeye, Snoopy. On the wall are half a dozen stock photos of Disney World and a brand-new Christmas advent calendar.

The Marines have taken over this compound. They have found children's scooters in the garage and they ride them blithely around, laden with weapons. At night they lie on the roof and sleep under the stars.


Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

I love the thought of Britney Spears posters up in Saddam's room

AaronSuperior said:

I always thought that he would have pictures of... say... Richard Greico or maybe Ricky Martin.

and "The Sound Of Music" in the cassette player

IceNine said:

they don't have sexy moustaches though. i take him as more of a Tom Selleck / Sam Elliott type of guy

This sounds like a gross invasion of someone's privacy. Did they knock first?

IceNine said:

Maybe, but this definitely proves that Britney Spears is evil.