Opinion

Photos: When rulers go bad: A peek inside 5 doomed dictators’ opulent lifestyles

He wasn't a king, but he certainly liked to live like one. The hubris of Saddam Hussein was astounding: During two decades of power, the Iraqi strongman built dozens (some say 80 to 100) marble mansions for himself, loyalists, relatives and "special friends." One elaborate palace -- named, modestly enough, "The Victory Over Iran" -- commemorated the bloody years-long conflict that ended after Iraq unleashed chemical weapons, and that left half a million soldiers dead. After the dictator was toppled, Iraqis celebrated by looting and burning (and famously toppling some of the huge, Soviet-style statues paying homage to him). Some sumptuous sites were heavily damaged, while others were commandeered as headquarters and housing by the occupying U.S.-led invasion forces. (Yes, sometimes the spoils really do go to the victors.) Although, being Americans and all, we said we'd give it back when we left, and we did. Industriously, some Iraqis then had plans: One villa became an upscale hotel. For about $200 a night, reported CNN, guests would be allowed to stay in a room where Hussein had slept. Local politicians in the town near Babylon talked up their plans for a resort; the "re-making" of Hussein-era structures could be "good for business." There were giddy news reports about international investments: The 50 or so Hussein-connected villas in one region, for example, "only need rehabilitation and a few other things to turn the whole area into a wonderful tourism site," the head of Salahuddin province's investment commission told Reuters television. That was in 2010. Maybe the redevelopment is a long-range plan. Maybe it's just not well publicized in the West. Maybe most of those palaces really have been repurposed for the people. Maybe. Above: U.S. Army soldiers walk outside Al Faw palace in the Victory Base Complex in Baghdad.

He wasn’t a king, but he certainly liked to live like one.

The hubris of Saddam Hussein was astounding: During two decades of power, the Iraqi strongman built dozens (some say 80 to 100) marble mansions for himself, loyalists, relatives and “special friends.”

One elaborate palace -- named, modestly enough, “The Victory Over Iran” -- commemorated the bloody years-long conflict that ended after Iraq unleashed chemical weapons, and that left half a million soldiers dead.

After the dictator was toppled, Iraqis celebrated by looting and burning (and famously toppling some of the huge, Soviet-style statues paying homage to him).

Some sumptuous sites were heavily damaged, while others were commandeered as headquarters and housing by the occupying U.S.-led invasion forces. (Yes, sometimes the spoils really do go to the victors.)

Although, being Americans and all, we said we’d give it back when we left, and we did.

Industriously, some Iraqis then had plans: One villa became an upscale hotel. For about $200 a night, reported CNN, guests would be allowed to stay in a room where Hussein had slept. Local politicians in the town near Babylon talked up their plans for a resort; the “re-making” of Hussein-era structures could be “good for business.”

There were giddy news reports about international investments: The 50 or so Hussein-connected villas in one region, for example, “only need rehabilitation and a few other things to turn the whole area into a wonderful tourism site,” the head of Salahuddin province’s investment commission told Reuters television.

That was in 2010.

Maybe the redevelopment is a long-range plan. Maybe it’s just not well publicized in the West. Maybe most of those palaces really have been repurposed for the people. Maybe.

Above: U.S. Army soldiers walk outside Al Faw palace in the Victory Base Complex in Baghdad.  (Khalid Mohammed / Associated Press)

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By Sara Lessley, guest blogger

Well, what a surprise: Ukrainian strongman Viktor Yanukovich had a palace. A really, really nice country estate a few miles out of town. That thousands of previously banned average Ukrainians stampeded to check out after he, uh, left town in a big hurry in late February.

But then what? After the gawking and the gaping and the photo-taking, what will happen to the magnificent compound, its golden furnishings, exotic zoo, the 300-plus acres of land? Assuming these spoils weren’t exactly acquired on your basic Ukrainian presidential salary, shouldn’t the citizens -- who perhaps unwittingly underwrote this excess, or clearly didn’t get use of the siphoned state funds -- somehow benefit?

When a despot falls -- or flees to a friendlier neighboring land -- and his (or her) palatial holdings (or two or 10) are exposed, shouldn’t Casa Excess become a park? A museum, at least? Or have the belongings sold off in some effort to repay the purloined state treasury?

Because, of course, Yanukovich wasn’t a lone (rich) wolf. Think Saddam Hussein. Think Moammar Kadafi. Or Zine el Abidine ben Ali of Tunisia. Or if you go way back, Imelda Marcos, the former “shoe queen” of the Philippines. What about the stuff they looted in the name of power and privilege? Is anything ever returned to the people from these ill-gotten gains?

Well, it depends.

Sara Lessley is a freelance journalist and editing coach in Los Angeles.

Libya's Moammar Kadafi

In Libya, the people are still waiting.

Over 40 long years, the erratic and increasingly ruthless Moammar Kadafi plundered his country and crushed his opponents. Enriching himself and his cohorts at the expense of his people, he built fabulous monuments to himself.

After his bloody end, cornered in a drain pipe in 2011, rebels and ordinary Libyans exploded.

Locals “repossessed” almost anything they could carry. As one rebel fighter told a Daily Mail interviewer in 2011: “Libyan children have no childhood; their lives are destroyed by Kadafi. But his children, his family, have everything.” Perhaps he was referring to the fantasy fairground complete with carousel and zoo inside the compound in the capital, Tripoli.

Libya is trying to get some back. Last year, the nation called on South Africa to help it recover millions in state funds, gold and diamonds it believes are stashed in that country.

And there’s the long-delayed promise to turn Kadafi’s feared Tripoli compound Bab Azizia -- bombed by NATO, vandalized, briefly a Friday market site, now a garbage dump -- into a vast entertainment complex for all the people.

Finally, last summer, Libya’s tourism minister again announced: “The work to clear away the rubble from the ruins of Bab Azizia, which was a black spot in Tripoli, has begun.”

OK, fingers crossed. Even the Libya Herald doesn’t see quick movement ahead on the promised green space, lake, museum, aquarium, cafe and cultural site: “Any development could, however, be stymied by private property claims” dating back to the original seizure of the land -- by Kadafi himself.

Above: Rebel fighters trample a bust of Moammar Kadafi inside the Bab Azizia compound.   (Sergey Ponomarev / Associated Press)

The Philippines' Imelda Marcos

Say “Imelda Marcos,” and don’t we still think “shoes”?

Decades later, the image remains of those rows and rows of designer shoes -- left behind when she and her longtime husband, President Ferdinand Marcos, fled for Hawaii after years of greed and excess.

When the Marcos family was ousted in a “people power” revolution in 1986, Philippine investigators estimated their corruptly accumulated riches in the billions.

Corazon Aquino, the next president, vowed change; the government seized the Marcos’ assets and called for a commission to recover more.

So what did the people get back?

Well, the shoes, for one thing. In a museum.

Yup, much of the fancy footwear ended up in Marikina City, an area known for -- you guessed it -- shoe manufacturing. And then in recent years, it turned out that some of Imelda’s collection stored elsewhere had, yes, rotted from neglect. How ironic.

OK, what else? Well, that much-heralded Commission on Good Government did get back some New York real estate and millions from Swiss bank accounts.

It’s an uphill battle.

The Marcos family, you see, is back in the Philippines and back in power. Yes, the still-going-strong-in-her-80s Imelda is a congresswoman; her daughter Imee is a provincial governor; her son Bong Bong is a senator.

As the head of that good government commission told a BBC interviewer: “Filipinos are too forgetful -- and we forgive too easily.”

Forgive and forget? For lost billions of dollars? Really?

Above: Former First Lady Imelda Marcos points to some of her 200 shoes on display at the Shoe Museum in suburban Marikina City.   (Pat Rtoque / Associated Press)

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