Tim Blair

hey, you do need to have a sufficient sample

Actually, since DNA only comes from inside cells, perhaps feeding him thru a plastic shredder would be more efficient.

If you chopped off his head, Robert Fisk would point out that the man is now obviously too short to be Osama.

That would be horribly vicious and prove we are no better than them.

A much gentler method is called for: I'd suggest using a butter knife. It may take days, but there'd be minimal violence.

Cofer Black is a legend. In Bob Woodward's "Bush at War", there's this bit where Cofer Black is briefing the President about what the war on terrorism really means. Basically, he says we're going to have to kill people, so we'll have to expect the press running pictures of dead bodies with flies crawling across their eyeballs, that sort of thing.

After that meeting, Bush took to referring to Cofer Black as "the flies on the eyeballs guy".

If you chopped off his head to get a sample, you'd still have to stick it back on, give him a cosmetic touch up and take some tasteful photos to prove to the Arabs that it was him.

Rather than DNA, which isn't even enough to get a conviction in a murder trial (see Simpson, OJ, blood trail from victim to house of), that we instead take his body to every house in Tikrit, Baghdad, and anywhere else they want to ask if the people who live there can confirm his identity.

You've sexed up your intelligence.

"If bin Laden was killed, Black continued, the world would demand proof. “You’d need some DNA,” he said."

Pathetic fools! The fact we haven't found Bin Laden yet proves he never existed! If he turned up now, it would simply be further evidence of Bush's consiracy. Wake up people. No Bin Laden heads for ooooooooooiiiiiiilllllll!