HIT MAN Paul (Photo: Getty Images)
The government is going about catching Osama bin Laden all wrong, says Republican representative and GOP primary contender Ron Paul. What we need is a citizen mercenary mob armed with the might of the U.S. constitution. And, you know, like Uzis and flame-throwers and stuff.

Paul, the only Republican candidate advocating withdrawal from Iraq, wants to bring back a 2001 bill that would have allowed the president to commission private citizens and non-government groups to specifically target Osama and his cohorts. In other words, he wants to send assassins after Al Qaeda. He introduced the "Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001" almost immediately following 9/11 out of anxiety over how the U.S. might retaliate for the terrorist attacks. "I was fearful we would invade and occupy," says Paul. "It doesn't make sense to direct attention at an entire government when attention should be directed at its lawless individuals." He adds, "We wouldn't have been in Iraq [if the bill had passed], and none of these men and women would have been killed."

The constitution, he says, has his back, allowing for Congress to appoint bounty hunters to kill and seize the property of anyone posing a serious threat to the country. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 grants Congress permission to "To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water." But Georgetown University law professor and constitutional law expert Paul Rothstein isn't so sure. Paul's "thesis is not entirely off the wall," Rothstein says but calls it "bad policy." "This would take quite a stretch of constitutional interpretation. There is a tortured interpretation that might do it, but it's spurious."

Constitutionality aside, what sort of person is suited for the task of hunting down the world's most wanted terrorist? The Rock? Boba Fett? Well, for one, says Paul, anyone commissioned to hunt down Bin Laden would have to be a non-government employee. More importantly, the congressman believes the hunt for Bin Laden to be "too great an undertaking for an individual." (Clearly, he's not familiar with Duane "Dog" Chapman.) Instead, he says, there are private companies out there with formally trained personnel who would be ideal for the mission. The bounty on Bin Laden's head now stands at a whopping $50 million, twice what it was before Congress raised the stakes in early July. Paul thinks it should be even more.

"Say a private company went in and caught him in the first six months," Paul says. "I don't think a billion would be too much to spend. We've already spent $500 billion [in Iraq] and lost all our men."