Hussein has many body doubles, scientist says

A GERMAN forensic pathologist says he can prove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has used at least three men as doubles for public appearances over the past four years.

Dr Dieter Buhmann said that, using new technology, he examined some 450 images of people purporting to be Saddam from videos of public appearances and was able to determine "without a doubt" that the dictator has doubles.

"The anatomical specificity of the faces is different," Buhmann said. "One, for example, has a very large middle face. The distance from one ear to the other is very much different to Saddam Hussein. And in another case the region under the mouth is too small and not high enough."

Saddam’s elaborate security precautions have been widely reported in the Arab press, which has said he makes frequent use of doubles and also will never spend two nights in a row in the same building. And he is known to live in perpetual fear of assassination by his own officers.

Buhmann, a pathologist at the University of the Saarland in Homburg since 1979, said he presented his technique of comparing facial features using overlays at an FBI forum in 2000, but did not know if US authorities had adopted the method .

He took on the Saddam project for a German public television station. Earlier this month, a former mistress of Saddam, Parisoula Lampsos, who claimed she had been his lover for 30 years, said Saddam has a double whose face has been altered by plastic surgery to make them identical.

She said the dictator laughed about UN weapons inspectors, saying they would never find anything because he moved and hid his chemical and other secret weapons before their visits.

CIA officials have said that Saddam never sleeps in the same location on successive nights, and he immediately executes anyone whom he suspects of betraying him.

Such measures have made it very difficult for the CIA to obtain reliable intelligence on his whereabouts.

One official said: "We might know that he was in one of several buildings in Baghdad - but then to be certain of killing him, we would have to blow them all up, which would also kill a lot of innocent people. We’re reluctant to do that."