Saddam Mural / Barracks

The building stretches across the middle of the photograph beneath a broad blue sky. A large painting of Saddam Hussein's head and shoulders occupies a raised rectangular bay left of center. Kenny Bass stands on the second-level roofline immediately beside the mural; the painted figure rises to approximately twice his visible height.

Rust-red vertical strips frame the bay. Painted panels and Arabic writing appear beside the head. Below, dark doorways and repeated arches punctuate the pale facade. A walkway leads inward from the foreground, bordered by low blue-and-white walls with arched openings. Thin metal frames angle through the right side. Deep courtyard shadows contrast with the sunlit upper building.

The standing figure supplies a visible scale reference: the mural is roughly twice his height. Repeated arches and low courtyard walls pull attention horizontally, while the open sky leaves the painted head and the small roofline figure clearly separated.

Kenny Bass is the small figure on the second-level roofline immediately beside a monumental Saddam Hussein mural at a compound across the Euphrates from the power plant. Bass identifies the rooftop construction above as an Iraqi listening post. Tim Jones made the photograph.

Photograph by Timothy 'Tim' Jones.

Photograph 2 of 15.

• Bass places the mural compound across the Euphrates from Al-Mussaib Thermal Power Plant.
• Bass recalls that Foreign Armor I and the related Foreign Armor II photograph were made at the same compound.