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From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re:More On Speicher

Date: January 19, 2001

"Navy Pilot May Have Survived Iraqi Shootdown in 1991
Ed Offley Stars and Stripes Editor in Chief

Ten years ago this week, Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher catapulted off the bow of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga in the Red Sea as part of the initial allied air strikes against Iraq in Operation Desert Storm. Less than an hour later, a wingman saw his F/A-18 Hornet struck by an anti-aircraft missile and plunge into the desert west of Baghdad.

He was never seen nor heard from again.

As the nation commemorates the brief but intense conflict between the U.S.-led allied coalition and Iraq a decade ago, the unanswered fate of the 33-year-old pilot remains one of the final unsolved mysteries of the Gulf War. Speicher remains the only U.S. military serviceman lost in the war whose remains were never returned.

As one of his final acts before leaving office on Jan. 20, Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig last week formally changed Speicher's status from "killed in action" to "missing in action," reflecting, in a Navy spokesman's words, the "totality" of a growing body of evidence that Speicher actually survived the crash of his aircraft.

After a review of the material--based on the totality of that review--he [Danzig] could no longer definitely conclude the status of Scott Speicher as killed in action. There is evidence he survived the ejection.

- Cmdr. Greg Smith "After a review of the material--based on the totality of that review--he [Danzig] could no longer definitely conclude the status of Scott Speicher as killed in action," said Cmdr. Greg Smith. Under the formal accounting rules, the Pentagon declares a serviceman killed in action only if "There can be no credible evidence that he survived."

But, Smith added, "There is evidence he survived the ejection."

The Speicher case has followed a twisting and turning path since the night of the shootdown on Jan. 16, 1991. Two days later, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney announced the loss of Speicher's aircraft and his status as missing in action. In the immediate aftermath of the shootdown, Central Command officials reportedly considered sending a search-and-rescue mission into the remote desert area where Speicher's plane was last seen, but the mission was canceled after reports from his wingman indicated no sign of an ejection.

In May 1991 the Navy issued a formal determination that he had died in the crash.

Remains not Speicher's After the war, the Iraqi government repatriated a set of remains officials said were Speicher's, but DNA analysis and blood tests showed it was not the pilot. His status as killed in action was reaffirmed in 1996 after a Red Cross team investigated the site of the aircraft wreckage in December 1995.

However, American intelligence officials in Washington last week told the Associated Press that there had been unconfirmed reports in recent years that Speicher survived the ejection and was imprisoned by the Iraqis. Additional unconfirmed reports of sightings were received by U.S. intelligence officials in late 1991 and 1992, sources told the AP.

President Clinton last week raised the possibility that Speicher may still be alive, but Navy officials privately consider that unlikely.

''We have some information that leads us to believe that he might be alive and we hope and pray he is,'' Clinton said in an interview with CBS. ''But we have already begun working to try to determine whether, in fact, he's alive; if he is, where he is and how we can get him out, and we're going to do everything we can to get him out.''

But Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told a delegation of American peace activists Monday Speicher had died in the crash and his remains had dissipated in the desert environment over the years.

All the indications were that he was killed while he was still in the cockpit. But there were no remnants of his body after several years in a remote desert environment.

- Iraqi Prime Minister Tariq Ariz

"All the indications were that he was killed while he was still in the cockpit," Aziz said when asked about the matter. "But there were no remnants of his body after several years in a remote desert environment."

Aziz added that fragments of Speicher's uniform were found at the site during the 1995 search.

'A Continuous Effort'

Smith, the Navy spokesman, said that Danzig's directive determining that Speicher is formally missing in action reflected the Navy's commitment to an ongoing investigation and not a step taken at the end of his tenure as navy secretary.

"This has been a continuous effort lasting many years," Smith said. "But without the help and support of the Iraqis we will not get the final resolution."

Iraq had not formally replied to a State Department request for information as of Tuesday.

Speicher was survived by his wife, Joanne, and two sons. She subsequently remarried."