DNA and head lice checks

As he emerged from his hole in the ground, he looked anything but a proud tyrant.

The hair and greying beard were filthy, the eyes full of fear and confusion.

With a cameraman filming his every move, a doctor wearing rubber gloves checked the wild man's hair for lice.

In a further indignity, the prisoner meekly opened wide so a DNA swab could be taken from inside his mouth.

Then he was washed and shaved ... to reveal the unmistakable face of Saddam Hussein staring forlornly into space.

'The pictures say everything we want to know about Saddam Hussein as he is today,' said Professor Amatzia Baram of Haifa University, an eminent expert on Saddam's regime.

'These are extraordinary images of a man who has lost all his power, and who is now resigned to

facing up to the enemies who have finally captured him.

'Saddam is psychologically shattered. When the Americans found him he was horribly isolated from the real world.'

Saddam, now 66, has spent the last eight months with a bounty of £16million on his head.

Before his disappearance he employed several doubles to carry out his business.

For that reason, and to reassure the Iraqi people that their tormentor was at last in Allied hands, it was vital to identify him by his genetic fingerprint as soon as possible.

Coalition commander Tommy Franks admitted in April that U.S. forces had a sample of Saddam's DNA.

Although he refused to divulge its source, it is rumoured to have been taken either from a razor blade or teacup and passed on to the Amercians by a former mistress. Samples-from close relatives can also help to nail down identity through genetic means.

The U.S. has DNA samples taken from his sons, Uday and Qusay, who were killed in a firefight with U.S. forces in the northern city of Mosul in July.

These would have been particularly useful in DNA analysis because the male Y-chromosome is inherited completely from father to son.