After Saddam Hussein once again failed to appear for a press conference this afternoon, many have jumped to the plausible conclusion that he is dead. Steven Den Beste is more circumspect:

Either he's dead, or he's in a coma, or he is so badly wounded as to make it impossible to disguise the fact on TV.

This is almost exactly right, but I would modify it a bit. If Saddam is wounded, it must (as he says) be in some way that is impossible to disguise, but it must also be something repulsive or humiliating. I don't know about Iraqi attitudes, but in the U.S. losing an arm or an eye for one's country could actually be a plus. An eye-patch in particular looks quite dashing: many years ago (the 60s?) a company (Van Heusen?) used a handsome eye-patched model to sell men's shirts. A few scars could also add to Saddam's heroic stature.

Of course, as Den Beste says, anything that can be concealed would also be possible: scars or burns below the neckline or above the hairline, a missing leg or two, missing genitalia. As with the last, it's kind of fun in a sick sort of way to consider all the possibilities. Actually, I'm not sure it's sick at all when dealing with someone like Saddam Hussein. Here are all the possibilities I can think of:

1. A missing nose or ear or chin is somehow not nearly so dashing as a missing eye.
2. The same goes for lips and front teeth.
3. Total deafness is one likely result of a near miss by a bunker-buster and would be hard to conceal. It's very difficult to speak naturally if you can't hear yourself, and a comically weird voice would definitely degrade Saddam's authority.
4. Numbers count. One facial scar or two would be a plus, but a face disfigured by 100+ stitches would look gruesome and loserly rather than heroic.
5. Similarly, while one blind eye would look dashing, two would be pathetic. (This may not apply to mullahs.)
6. The same goes for arms: one hook or empty sleeve looks heroic, but two of them imply spoon-feeding and other unheroic limitations.
7. Saddam's face may be hideously burned: if so, it would be very hard not to look like a guy who's losing a war.
8. There have been rumors of a crushed abdomen. If this prevented Hussein from standing or from sitting up straight, it would explain why we haven't seen him. A speech made from a chaise longue or hospital bed lacks gravitas, at least for a military leader. Perhaps Cleopatra could get away with it.
9. Brain damage has also been rumored, and that would be very difficult to conceal. Though not without precedent (the emperor Claudius) a drooling, twitching, stuttering chief executive would again lack the gravitas required to keep his followers in line, even if his reason were unimpaired.
10. Even an unmarred body is not necessarily presentable on TV, and it doesn't take physical brain damage to affect one's demeanor. If I remember rightly, the bomb that nearly killed Hitler in July 1944 left him with an uncontrollable facial twitch and shaking hands. Modern drugs can relieve such symptoms, but it's hard to win a war while drugged.

Everyone will have his own favorite among these possibilities. Have I forgotten any?