As to be expected, Time magazine is quoting the usual sources who tentatively rule out any possibility of a Saddam Hussein body double close enough for prime-time:

In Washington, debate raged: Was it really him?

Was the tape made after March 19? Skeptical commentators suggested we might be seeing one of the doubles Saddam has acknowledged using. But U.S. officials say the cia has no information that he has ever used doubles for close-ups like that one. The agency believes he uses stand-ins in motorcades and long-distance appearances, just as a Secret Service agent who looks similar to a U.S. President might take a decoy car around Washington. But officials say there's no evidence that any Saddam double is identical enough to fool the camera.

Time stands on a somewhat thin argument, aided only by the fact that the allies haven't cracked Saddam's code of public conduct; but really, is reasonable doubt for an unreasonable man strong enough? Not understanding a magician's intricacies and methods does not imply a reality to their tricks. Besides, if we knew how extensively Saddam used his doubles, the only source we could trust would be archives in Baghdad or Tikrit. In that case, we'd know who they were and what they looked like - no mystery left.

But always in these statements are significant qualifying statements. From an MSNBC story just last fall (emphasis mine):

A U.S. official told NBC News, however, that while they can confirm that Saddam has used doubles in decoy convoys, they doubt Saddam uses lookalikes for official appearances. [...]

"Its not a Dave kind of deal," said the official, making reference to the movie "Dave"” in which a job training specialist fills in for a comatose president. "We have reports in the past of him using lookalikes and while you can’t put anything past this guy, we kind of doubt it that he has been using doubles for official appearances."

Intelligence doesn't know, and they prefer to give a fiercely paranoid madman the benefit of the doubt. It's their analytical choice, but its seems more out of conservative doubt than sound intuition. CIA, you'll recall, is dogmatic about a complete absence of links between the Ba'athists and Islamists - an idea that is hardly credible with what we've learned over the past two weeks including the Nasiriyah mural, the al Ansar Islam camp, the Islamofascist rhetorical leaning by the Saddam stand-in and others, and the clearly terrorist tactics - including murder bombings - employed by Fedeyeen Saddam and other Ba'athist forces.

The crux of the Saddam identity debate appears to be political, and wielded on the part of liberation opponents. From Time:

Despite a year of making the case that Iraq's leader was too terrible to tolerate, the White House does not want victory to hinge on his confirmed demise. President Bush's unfulfilled promise to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" is a haunting reminder of how hard it might be to get Saddam. Administration officials have taken to saying, as Central Command spokesman Jim Wilkinson said Friday, that "our campaign is much larger than any one single personality." But it's doubtful that much of the world would judge the war a success while Saddam's fate was unresolved.

Moving goal posts. The article also continues on to snigger about bio-chem-atomics that have not been found, though Time neglects to mention how impossible that would be for allied forces so occupied with defeating the enemy that they are practically unable to bathe, and without unfrightened Iraqi scientists to help navigate to laboratories through what will undoubtedly prove to be a country-wide, covert labyrinth.

Which leads us to this thoughtless remark:

But if [chemical weapons] aren't found, that would lead many to question the war.

Those who question the war will question it for whatever pathetic nit they can lay their claws on. It's nice to know that in nearly two years following the epiphany of September 11th, Time magazine is still ambivalent on the subject of oppression and liberation.

A German source, however, believes not only that Saddam maintains two or three body doubles, but that the dictator has not been in public for five years (Go here for cut-and-paste translations). Turning a Howard Hughes is a little far-fetched for me, but when a German coroner confirms that differences between Saddam and his doubles include shoulder breadth, I'm left to ask skeptics how they can account for Saddam's head to grow by about 30%. Yes, faces can bloat after trauma or while under the influence of anesthetics, but not to this degree.

Besides, watch the video footage of Saddam meeting and greeting Iraqis.

He toddles like a grandfather; not a brutal Stalinist. Watch how he grins, half-heartedly pumps his fist and then gently motions at one point for the crowd to part - hardly the motion of even a well-disciplined dictator while in a besieged city.

Finally:

The top left and bottom right are who I am certain are counterfeits. They are from footage clearly produced after the March 20th bombing and this past week, respectively. The top left belies his identity not only facially but by the fact that Saddam, no matter how addled, could rattle off exhortations like a nursery rhyme. The bottom right, obviously a different man, is self-explanatory.

The top right and bottom left are most likely Saddam himself, but from footage of inner circle meetings that could have taken place any point in time before the deposition. Besides, if these clowns could hold central meetings, the Iraqi resistance would not be characterized by the degree of confusion and aimlessness as it is by Centcom.