News-Info-Alerts

Re: Iraqi Invite Could Be Valid

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: March 26, 2002

"Iraqi invitation could be valid

Bethlehem-- Former U.N. weapons inspector says U.S. officials have contacted him about offer

By BRUCE A. SCRUTON, Staff writer
First published: Tuesday, March 26, 2002

While the American government publicly discounts the offer, former arms inspector Scott Ritter said Monday there may be some substance to an apparent invitation for Americans to enter Iraq and search for a pilot shot down in the Persian Gulf War.

Ritter, who was chief of a U.N. inspection team that was eventually taken out of Iraq, said he has held talks with U.S. government members about the offer.

But he also said the Iraqi government is "operating under the misconception of what I know about the fate'' of the American pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher.

The apparent Iraqi offer is to allow a team of Americans to look for evidence and at the apparent 1991 crash site. Shortly after the crash, the Pentagon listed Speicher as killed in action, but last year, his status was changed to missing in action, based on intelligence reports that he might still be alive.

Ritter, who lives in the Capital Region, said members of the U.N. weapons team "stumbled across the crash site of an airplane'' during one of its missions and Saddam Hussein may believe the search for such crashes was part of the inspection team's mission.

"That (crash site inspections) was outside the purview of our mission as weapons inspectors,'' Ritter said.

Ritter said he had been told another qualification was for members of the U.S. media to be on the trip.

"If I was asked, and somehow my presence would be useful, I would go,'' Ritter answered.

When asked why, in view of the conflict between the weapons inspectors and Iraqi government, his name was mentioned, the former Marine speculated, "They didn't like us as weapons inspectors. But they never doubted my integrity, my honesty. That may be it, they know I will tell the truth.''

On Monday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he did not know of any formal invitation or request by the Iraqi government. "I don't believe very much that the regime of Saddam Hussein puts out,'' Rumsfeld said. "They're masters at propaganda.''

The reports came from Chinese and American news services over the weekend and included the International Committee of the Red Cross being involved.

Also Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office announced that he will meet Iraq's foreign minister in April for two days of talks, hoping to focus on the return of arms inspectors to the Mideast nation, The Associated Press reported.

A spokesman said Annan and Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri will meet April 18 and 19 in New York, stressing that the secretary-general felt two days of talks might be warranted. The two met for one day, March 7, in their first high-level talks in a year. A New York Times report was included in this story. "