Saddam’s sorcerer says he’ll be found, but dead

HEET, Iraq — The wrinkled old man sprays perfume around the sparse, dingy room, then holds out his hands and feet and instructs one of his visitors to tie him up, knot the cloth three times and blow on it.

The lights die and small red flashes go off beneath the black cloak that covers a bowl of magic powders and water. The visitors feel pokes and jabs and things fluttering over their heads in the darkness — “birds,” the wizard says. Water splashes from the bowl.

The genies have arrived, and the questions begin.

Will Saddam be found? A genie answers in the old man’s voice: “Yes.”

Dead or alive? “Dead.”

And the $25 million question: Where is he? “Dhuluaiyah,” he says. Dhuluaiyah is a village 55 miles north of Baghdad.

Thousands of magicians, fortunetellers and faith healers make up a huge world of Iraqi spirituality that thrives despite being considered by many Muslims to be sinful.

But this man is different. He was Saddam’s own sorcerer, and therefore, for Iraqis, his visions of the dictator’s demise carry special weight.

The sorcerer asks that he not be identified, and won’t even pronounce the name of the man he once served.

“That man is still alive, so I’m afraid,” he says. “I helped him, his sons, his ministers, his wife, his cousins, but I can’t mention names. When he is dead I can talk about him.”

According to the magician and several others interviewed in Baghdad, Saddam was a firm believer in magic, and even applied himself, with modest success, to “studying the sands” and summoning genies.

He consulted frequently with two magicians from Iraq, one from Turkey, one from India, a French Arab and a beautiful Jewish witch from Morocco, the wizard says.

Saddam is still protected, he says, by a pair of magic-infused golden statues. The deposed president speaks daily with the king and queen of genies — the same ones who provided the information on his whereabouts.

Other magicians also talk about Saddam, some describing fleeting meetings in which the dictator measured them up. Several said he has a powerful stone — or the bone of a parrot — implanted under the skin of his right arm to protect him against bullets and to make people love him.

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