O/T American Pop Culture on Display at Aziz's Mansion
PUSSSYKATT
Washington Post Staff Writer
BAGHDAD, April 10 -- A bulletin board in the kitchen of former deputy prime
minister Tariq Aziz is plastered with snapshots that reveal a man who led a
rich and varied life. There he is ballroom dancing with his wife. In another
frame he poses surrounded by children in front of the family Christmas tree.
Naturally, for the man who represented former President Saddam Hussein for
years, he is also depicted locked in a warm embrace with the now-fallen Iraqi
leader.
With his big-framed glasses and gray mustache, Aziz is widely recognized abroad
because of his career as foreign minister and longtime defender of Hussein's
rule. A fluent English speaker educated at the University of Baghdad, he was
the only Christian among the senior leaders of the Baath Party. One rumor had
him defecting last month as the Bush administration gathered forces for war,
but Aziz popped up on television two days later to publicize his continued
loyalty. Since U.S. troops closed in on Baghdad, he has dropped out of sight,
with Hussein and all the country's other top leaders.
Aziz, born Mikhail Yuhanna in 1936 near Mosul in northern Iraq, left behind a
riverfront home full of personal effects that shed light on the grandeur and
the normality of his everyday life. The contents indicate that, with all his
denunciations of the United States, he had a vivid interest in American authors
and popular culture, from political memoirs to the personality profiles of
Vanity Fair.
The four-story home sits on an oxbow of the Tigris River, near a highway
overpass. Outside the front door is a worn woven mat that reads "welcome."
Throughout the home are understated pieces of Christian iconography: a small
portrait of Christ, a Virgin Mary figurine in the kitchen and a wallet-sized
photo of an Eastern Orthodox priest attached to a mirror in the bedroom.
Aziz's study is an airy room on the ground floor, its shelves heaving with
writings by and about his adversaries, such as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and
former president George H.W. Bush, as well as dozens of volumes of works
attributed to Hussein. He owns several histories of the Iran-Iraq war and a
collection of works on the Central Intelligence Agency, including Bob
Woodward's "Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987." He also owns several
Western works on politics in the region, including Judith Miller's "God Has
Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting From a Militant Middle East," and Daniel Yergin's
"The Prize," about the politics of oil.
True to his role as a former foreign minister, Aziz owns two major works by
former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger: "Diplomacy" and "White House
Years." And tucked away on the top of one shelf is "The Greatest Threat," by
Richard Butler, who led a U.N. weapons inspection team in Iraq in the 1990s.
His collection also includes an autobiography of Moshe Dayan, an Israeli
general and statesman, and several works on the subject of Zionism. He owns
"Saddam's War," an account of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the
international response to it, written by John Bulloch and Harvey Morris, and
"Hitler's War," by David Irving, about the German dictator to whom the Iraqi
leader has sometimes been compared.
Alongside the collection of books are dozens of Vanity Fair magazines and a
large glass cabinet overflowing with more than 50 American movies on DVD. The
titles include dramas, such as "The Godfather" series, lighter fare, such as
"Sleepless in Seattle," and action films, such as "Dragon," the story of
martial arts expert Bruce Lee.
As for Aziz's official reading, U.S. Marines blew open several safes when they
arrived at the abandoned house Wednesday night and removed reams of documents,
which will be analyzed by intelligence experts.
In a ground floor office are photographs of a man in his forties who appears to
be Aziz's son. White business cards bearing the name Ziad Tariq Aziz are on a
large oak desk. On the floor is a box of cigars, a backgammon set and a bottle
of Cartier cologne. Brochures advertising Smith & Wesson and Remington firearms
are scattered on the office floor. A Princeton Review test preparation book,
titled "Cracking the GMAT," is marked with notes in the margins.
On the second floor of the house is a master bedroom with dressers stacked high
with unopened bottles of cologne: Drakkar Noir and Obsession for men. The
attached bathroom is filled with American magazines: Vogue, Cosmopolitan and
GQ, along with a few dog-eared novels by Danielle Steel.
Just a few blocks away on the same riverbank stands one of Hussein's
residences, a five-building compound that is larger and more opulent than
Aziz's home. It is unclear how much time Hussein spent at the home, because he
tried to obscure his whereabouts as a security precaution.
Hussein's palace, covered in scaffolding and apparently under construction, was
struck by a 2,000-pound bomb less than two weeks ago. Scattered throughout the
now-shabby backyard that leads to the river are Romanesque statues of nude
figures and ceramic lions coated in gold leaf.
A tour of the grounds reveals many trappings of wealth: a swimming pool, an
empty four-car garage and elaborate flower gardens. The vaulted ceiling in a
colonnaded mansion at the southern end of the compound is painted in a style
reminiscent of the Sistine Chapel, with dozens of cherubs floating on clouds in
a blue sky.
The mansions are adorned with dozens of large mirrors and images of the Iraqi
leader. In the front yard of one building is a sculpture of Hussein riding a
horse and carrying a sword, as well as a marble bust of his head. Hussein's
profile is carved into the stone facade of another. Alongside one marble
staircase is a wall-sized mural of the Hussein family in formal wear: Saddam
and his wife and daughter, two sons, and their wives.
Based on the contents of the rooms, it appears that this palace housed mostly
women and children. Inside are several walk-in closets full of hundreds of
dresses and pairs of women's dress shoes. Toys are strewn all over the main
living spaces, including at least three metal scooters.
A fully equipped dentist's office occupies one room of a large stone mansion
that has neoclassical columns. Nearby are a beauty salon, its floors covered
with fashion magazines, and a doctor's office, with an eye chart on one wall. A
cassette recording of "The Sound of Music" sits by a tape player in an upstairs
office. The master bathroom is stocked with Christian Dior towels, and a
treadmill and several workout videos are in an adjoining exercise room.
Upstairs in a child's room with a small wooden bed is a cluttered collection of
American toys and pop culture trinkets: stuffed animals and cartoon characters
such as the Tasmanian Devil, Popeye and Sylvester the cat. The walls are
decorated with posters of Snoopy and photographs of Disney World, along with
photos of the pop singer Britney Spears, apparently torn from magazines.
An Advent calendar sits on a desk, next to a host of plastic figurines:
Spiderman, Batman and the dwarfs from Snow White.
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