Gulf War pilot’s status still ‘missing-captured’
March 02, 2004
Gulf War pilot’s status still ‘missing-captured’
By Robert Burns
Associated Press
Nearly a year after the fall of Baghdad, the Navy has yet to find evidence to change its position that F-18 fighter pilot Michael Scott Speicher, shot down on the opening night of the 1991 Gulf War, was at one time in Iraqi captivity, the Navy’s top admiral said Tuesday.
Iraq has maintained all along that Speicher was killed in the crash. The Navy, which has changed its position on Speicher’s status over the years, lists him as “missing-captured.”
“We have not found out new specific intelligence revelations that have changed our fundamental conclusion,” Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operation, told a group of reporters at a breakfast interview.
In October 2002 the Navy changed Speicher’s status from missing in action to “missing-captured,” although it has never said what evidence it has that he was in captivity. He initially was listed as killed in action, with no body recovered. But in January 2001, the Navy changed his status to MIA, citing an absence of evidence that he had died.
Asked directly whether any evidence had emerged to support the Navy’s position that Speicher had been taken captive by the Iraqis after he was shot down on Jan. 17, Clark said, “I can’t answer that question.”
Later a senior Navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, conceded that no information has emerged that reinforces the theory that Speicher had ever been in captivity.
In fact, other officials have said in recent months that some information from informants, claiming before the U.S. invasion last March that Speicher had been seen in a prison in Baghdad, has since been discredited.
Clark said resolving the fate of Speicher is a high priority for the Navy.
“We do not have new intelligence that adds clarity and definition to what happened to him” after he was shot down, Clark said. “If you think about what I just told you, that tells you something about the discovery or lack of discovery.”
Speicher was 33 when he was shot down. He held the rank of lieutenant commander at the time; he has since been promoted to captain. Speicher’s family lived in the Kansas City area and moved to Florida when he was a teenager.
http://www.marinetimes.com/story.php...25-2693547.php
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
Attorney for Speicher family wants to interview Iraqis in Iraq
Thursday, March 4
Attorney for Speicher family wants to interview Iraqis in Iraq
The Associated Press
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. __
An attorney representing the family of missing Navy pilot Scott Speicher
is asking for permission to interview captured Iraqi officials to see if
she can determine what happened to the pilot who was shot in 1991 in the
first war with Iraq.
In a letter faxed to U.S. Sens. Pat Roberts, R_Kan., and Bill Nelson,
D_Fla., attorney Cindy Laquidara said she had independent evidence placing
Speicher in the custody of the man known as Chemical Ali, former Iraqi
Gen. Ali Hassan al_Majid.
Al_Majid, captured by coalition forces in August, was considered to have
been Saddam Hussein's hatchet man and the one who ordered a gas attack
that killed 5,000 Kurds in 1988.
Laquidara also wants the government's help in locating Iraq's former
ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Aldouri, for additional
questioning.
In 2002, Laquidara traveled to New York and met with Aldouri. When Saddam
Hussein was ousted, he left New York.
"We either are not capable of closing this matter following a war or we do
not choose to pursue the answer," Laquidara's letter said. "Either is
unacceptable."
Nelson's office said copies of the letter were given to Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Calls to Laquidara's office Thursday were not returned.
At a recent briefing, Nelson learned the Defense Department was now not
planning to offer the reward of up to $1 million that was authorized by
Congress to learn the fate of the Jacksonville_based pilot.
Nelson wrote a letter to Rumsfeld asking him to not reconsider his earlier
decision on offering a reward.
"I believe such an action would be a mistake," Nelson said. "At the very
least, it would send a clear signal that finding out what happened to
Scott Speicher is no longer a top priority."
Pete Contosgavlos, a Nelson aide, said, "Rewards in countries like this
can be effective."
Earlier this week, Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, said
investigations in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad have found no evidence
that Speicher was held in captivity after being shot down on the first
night of the 1991 Gulf War.
The Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein maintained from the
start that Speicher died in the crash on Jan. 17, 1991, although his body
was not recovered.
Speicher was 33 when he was shot down. He held the rank of lieutenant
commander at the time; he has since been promoted to captain.
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: