Can it be?

[angels4u]

DNA test on bunker body

By Hugh Dougherty, Bob Graham, Hugh Muir, and Robert Fox, Evening Standard

The ruins of the restaurant where Saddam Hussein may have died will be searched for DNA material that may identify him.

The same process is already under way with what is believed to be the remains of Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan Al Majid - known as "Chemical Ali".

These will go to UK and US laboratories and should provide identification, though the process could take weeks.

In both cases, experts need matching material from relatives but Saddam's Tikriti clan has had several defectors so finding someone to provide "family" samples may not be too hard.

The main problem is getting some DNA material belonging to Saddam and his sons Uday and Qusay. The Americans have to get to the site in the first place and then find some remains, despite the clearout that Saddam's bodyguards will have carried out.

In public, US officials would only say that the surprise attack was aimed at "senior leadership" in the Ba'ath party. But in private they are jubilant that Saddam could have been killed.

"If Saddam did not slip out, then he is dead," said a senior coalition source.

Speculation that the Iraqi dictator was hit increased today when Iraqi television replaced normal news programmes with patriotic music and old footage of Saddam speaking at rallies.

The audacious bombing raid came yesterday an hour after a CIA spy saw Saddam and up to 40 of his inner circle, including at least one of his sons, enter a building in suburban Baghdad.

Four 2,000lb smart bombs flattened three houses and a restaurant in the Al Mansour area of Baghdad, leaving tons of twisted steel and concrete.

Group Captain Al Lockwood, a spokesman for British forces in the Gulf, confirmed today that the information about Saddam's whereabouts had come from three different intelligence sources.

"We do have a great deal of knowledge of regime movements at the moment." he told GMTV.

Rescue workers digging in the rubble said they had found two bodies but said the death toll is expected to be as high as 14.

Today drone planes were flying over the site in an attempt to assess the damage. CIA and special forces operatives are already in the area.

Eavesdropping technology is being deployed to listen in to the conversations of Saddam's inner circle in the hope that they will reveal exactly who died in the airstrike.

The prospect of eliminating Saddam and his senior officials prompted coalition strategists to abandon their normal policy of diverting bombers away from residential areas.

Senior officers in the Joint Operations Command room agreed within minutes to carry out the strike and called in a B1B bomber already in the air over Baghdad.

The strike was the first to use a taxi-rank system of bombers only put in place yesterday, which sees heavy bombers circling over Baghdad and other parts of Iraq with their bombs ready.

Today, just before it went off the air at 7.30am, Arab television showed Iraqis in military uniform walking over smoking ruins that were little more than mud and bricks. A car buried in rubble could also be seen.

Saddam was last seen on Iraqi state television yesterday, talking to Qusay and senior military officials at a meeting the Pentagon says was probably recorded some time ago.

He was shown over the weekend being mobbed by Iraqis on a walkabout that US officials also believe was staged for the cameras well before the war started.

One problem for the US is that the destruction of the complex is so great, little may remain of the bodies underneath.

Intelligence experts also fear that Saddam could have used a network of tunnels under the area to defeat the bunker-busting bombs.

The Allies have targeted Saddam personally from the outset. President Bush ordered an earlier attack on an underground complex on the first night of the war after the CIA learned Saddam was meeting inside.

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Find this story at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news....rsion=1

[Guest French Fries]

Maybe Saddam was smuggled out of Iraq to Russia from where he escaped to the moon for the duration of the war in a space capsule manned by a veteran Russian cosmonaut in his sixties.

[angels4u]

Hi French Fries,

Yes, I read something about that too!

Welcome to this board, I hope you will enjoy sharing your opinions with others! :lightbulb:

You know your name makes me hungry, why did you choose French Fries?

Love in Christ,Angels