Saddam's DNA Testing was done in military lab; US keeping results close to chest By Robert Walgate
DNA testing was a key tool used by US authorities to ensure the man they found in a hole in the
ground last week was indeed Saddam Hussein, together with confirmation by former members of Saddam's
regime. But details of those tests are unlikely to be revealed soon.
Officials from the US Department of Defense have indicated to The Scientist that next week
would be the earliest any publication of the results and methods would happen, if they are made
public at all.
What has been confirmed is that the testing was carried out at the US Armed Forces DNA
Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) in Washington, DC. The lab is a department of the Armed Forces
Institute of Pathology, on the grounds of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Officials from the institute told The Scientist that the lab had already done a considerable
amount of DNA work on operational cases in Iraq and therefore had real expertise in the
identification of Saddam.
Meanwhile, speculation on the methodology and quality of the data is running rife.
News of the result seems first to have been first broken by the head of the Iraqi Governing Council
Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, who said on Sunday that DNA tests had confirmed that the suspect was Saddam
Hussein, less than 24 hours after his discovery.
Allowing for the time taken to fly a sample from the captured man to Washington, this implies the
test was completed very quickly for a routine DNA identification-unless initial tests were
performed in Iraq.
Read the rest at The Scientist.com biomedcentral.com05Open ↗
Comment: Apart from the DNA tests, we can compare the Bush administrations profile of Saddam to
reality, allowing, of course, for the Bush regime's passion for wild exaggeration: Regime said: that
Saddam had a network of tunnels that could hide WMD programs and a small army for many months;
Reality: Saddam was found in a rabbit hole; Regime said: that Saddam was awash with biological,
chemical and nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction; Reality: Saddam had a pistol; Regime said: Saddam
was a threat to his neighbours, the World and the USA; Reality: A frightened Saddam soiled his
underwear while giving up without a fight.
Looks fairly conclusive: the Bush regime's rhetoric and reality in the case of Saddam are about as
far apart as with other issues eg Regime: Clinton, who took the country from deficit to record
surplus in 8 years is fiscally irresponsible compared to Bush; Reality: Bush turned the surplus
around to an estimated three quarters of a trillion dollar deficit in three years flat.
Posted by Robert Karl Stonjek.