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American Morning

Talk with Forensic Pathologist

Aired April 09, 2003 - 08:26   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: I want to know right now whether or not Saddam Hussein was inside of that bunker, and how the U.S. will ever even be able to determine whether or not he or his two sons were present when those four 2,000-pound bombs hit that residential section of Mansour west of Baghdad earlier this week. Want to talk with Dr. Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist who's live with us today in Pittsburgh.
Doctor, good to have you back here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Do you believe right now -- does the United States even have DNA of Saddam Hussein? Do they have DNA of his two sons?

DR. CYRIL WECHT, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, of course, I don't know that. I would hope that we had the foresight to have obtained some DNA samples in the weeks and months previously. It could have easily been obtained from a drinking cup, from a utensil, from a toothbrush and so on. As much as we've had such good spies as to tell us where he was going to be three weeks ago, and again, two days ago, or yesterday, then we should have had that.

Now, if we have that, then we have the ability to perform regular DNA with the remains, no matter how small they may be, pieces even of a body that would have been badly, badly disintegrated, and broken up by these huge bombs. If we do not have that, and we don't have dental records and we don't have medical records, which I doubt we will have, then we have to go to Tikrit and we have to find a relative of Saddam's mother. On the maternal side, matrilineal descent if we can get some DNA then, blood from his mother's sister, a maternal cousin or whatever, then mitochondrial DNA could be used for identification, assuming then that some remains are found. They'll look and they'll sift through with pieces, trying to make sure that they don't miss any single piece of a human remain, and there may be thousands like this from the kinds of bombs that were dropped, and they'll take their time. They can process about 96 specimens at one time in any given lab. I think those tests will be done back here in the United States, and they'll get a DNA pattern for every single piece of tissue.

And if they have something to compare, whether it's something that they know is from Saddam Hussein before, or they got -- they have obtained something from a maternal relative for mitochondrial DNA, then we can find out if any of those pieces of tissue are from Saddam Hussein.

HEMMER: Doctor, I think that scenario is fascinating. Is that a perfect match if it comes from his maternal side? Or is it close enough? WECHT: Yes, it's close enough. It's not in the hundreds and billions or trillions, which regular DNA, PCR, prelimerate (ph) chain reaction, can give us nowadays, but it goes into the hundreds of thousands, and even into the millions, and it will, I think, suffice for our purposes of course, when correlated with what is known investigatively and so on. I don't think there is going to be any question. Now if they do also find the remains of his son, then that, of course, gives you additional information. We're talking about the disintegration of the body from these bombs. It is certainly quite possible that if he were there, and if he were killed by the bombs, that the body may not have been blown up into hundreds or thousands of pieces, in which case, some examinations can be performed even of the physiognomy.

If they have any medical records at all, maybe a broken wrist when he was 13, maybe had his gallbladder removed, things like that. I'm not optimistic that we're going to have those kinds of records. I think that they probably are quite furtively removed in the past by Saddam Hussein.

But I think that the DNA, either from some materials that have been obtained, or from a maternal relative probably in the village of Tikrit, where he comes from, I think that there is every reason to believe that we should have or we should be able to obtain those things.

HEMMER: Fascinating stuff. Thank you, doctor. Dr. Cyril Wecht there, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired April 9, 2003 - 08:26   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: I want to know right now whether or not Saddam Hussein was inside of that bunker, and how the U.S. will ever even be able to determine whether or not he or his two sons were present when those four 2,000-pound bombs hit that residential section of Mansour west of Baghdad earlier this week. Want to talk with Dr. Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist who's live with us today in Pittsburgh.
Doctor, good to have you back here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Do you believe right now -- does the United States even have DNA of Saddam Hussein? Do they have DNA of his two sons?

DR. CYRIL WECHT, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, of course, I don't know that. I would hope that we had the foresight to have obtained some DNA samples in the weeks and months previously. It could have easily been obtained from a drinking cup, from a utensil, from a toothbrush and so on. As much as we've had such good spies as to tell us where he was going to be three weeks ago, and again, two days ago, or yesterday, then we should have had that.

Now, if we have that, then we have the ability to perform regular DNA with the remains, no matter how small they may be, pieces even of a body that would have been badly, badly disintegrated, and broken up by these huge bombs. If we do not have that, and we don't have dental records and we don't have medical records, which I doubt we will have, then we have to go to Tikrit and we have to find a relative of Saddam's mother. On the maternal side, matrilineal descent if we can get some DNA then, blood from his mother's sister, a maternal cousin or whatever, then mitochondrial DNA could be used for identification, assuming then that some remains are found. They'll look and they'll sift through with pieces, trying to make sure that they don't miss any single piece of a human remain, and there may be thousands like this from the kinds of bombs that were dropped, and they'll take their time. They can process about 96 specimens at one time in any given lab. I think those tests will be done back here in the United States, and they'll get a DNA pattern for every single piece of tissue.

And if they have something to compare, whether it's something that they know is from Saddam Hussein before, or they got -- they have obtained something from a maternal relative for mitochondrial DNA, then we can find out if any of those pieces of tissue are from Saddam Hussein.

HEMMER: Doctor, I think that scenario is fascinating. Is that a perfect match if it comes from his maternal side? Or is it close enough? WECHT: Yes, it's close enough. It's not in the hundreds and billions or trillions, which regular DNA, PCR, prelimerate (ph) chain reaction, can give us nowadays, but it goes into the hundreds of thousands, and even into the millions, and it will, I think, suffice for our purposes of course, when correlated with what is known investigatively and so on. I don't think there is going to be any question. Now if they do also find the remains of his son, then that, of course, gives you additional information. We're talking about the disintegration of the body from these bombs. It is certainly quite possible that if he were there, and if he were killed by the bombs, that the body may not have been blown up into hundreds or thousands of pieces, in which case, some examinations can be performed even of the physiognomy.

If they have any medical records at all, maybe a broken wrist when he was 13, maybe had his gallbladder removed, things like that. I'm not optimistic that we're going to have those kinds of records. I think that they probably are quite furtively removed in the past by Saddam Hussein.

But I think that the DNA, either from some materials that have been obtained, or from a maternal relative probably in the village of Tikrit, where he comes from, I think that there is every reason to believe that we should have or we should be able to obtain those things.

HEMMER: Fascinating stuff. Thank you, doctor. Dr. Cyril Wecht there, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com