News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Naval Decision

Date: January 20, 2001

"Pilot Data Said From Several Sources
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Navy's decision to change the status of Gulf War pilot Lt. Cmdr. Michael S. Speicher from killed in action to missing in action was based on intelligence information from several different sources, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

Kenneth Bacon, spokesman for Defense Secretary William Cohen, said some of the information was received after the Navy reaffirmed in 1996 its previous determination that Speicher had been killed on an F-18 combat mission over Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991.

Last week the Navy announced without explanation that it had switched Speicher's status to missing.

At a Pentagon news briefing, Bacon was asked why the Navy had waited so long.

``This has been a process of analysis and information collection that's been cumulative over a long period of time,'' Bacon said. ``We have information from several different sources that I can't go into. All I can tell you is that it took a while to accumulate and analyze the information that led to this decision.''

He said some of the information had been developed since the 1996 decision, but he would not provide details.

U.S. officials said last week that intelligence agencies had received unconfirmed reports over a period of years that Speicher survived the shootdown of his F-18 and that an American believed to be Speicher had been seen in custody in Iraq after the war.

There is no hard evidence that Speicher is alive, although President Clinton raised that possibility in saying last week ``we're going to do our best to find out if he is alive and, if he is, to get him out.''

On Monday, a senior Iraqi government officials said a search in 1995 of the crash site in Iraq's western desert showed the pilot was killed without ejecting from the cockpit, though his remains were never found. Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz rejected suggestions by American officials that Speicher might have survived and could still be alive.

``All the indications were that he was killed while he was still in the cockpit,'' Aziz said.

Aziz said Iraq had not been aware of the crash site until the Americans notified Iraq prior to the 1995 inspection of the site.

Bacon, however, said the Clinton administration doubts the Iraqis have told all they know about what happened to Speicher after his crash.

``We don't have specific knowledge of what (information) they may have,'' Bacon said. ``They have claimed that they don't have records. But some of their statements have been somewhat disingenuous because they only go back to 1995.

``So we have asked the Iraqis to provide whatever information they have about what happened between 1991, when the plane was shot down, and 1995 certainly, and thereafter.''