News-Info-Alerts

Re: Gulf War Pilot 'Probably Survived'

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: April 03, 2002

"A closer look: gulf war pilot ‘probably survived’

Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., has pressed the White House to do more to determine just what happened to Navy pilot Michael Speicher, long believed to have been killed during the Persian Gulf War but now suspected of being held prisoner by Iraq. The following are edited excerpts of a recent Smith interview on Fox News.

Q. What do we know about Lt. Speicher?

A. There is no evidence that he's dead and a lot of evidence that he survived the crash and very well may be a captive. We just can't say with certainty.

Q. You have an independent source outside the U.S. government with knowledge about this. What does he tell you?

A. I can only tell you the unclassified version of the report from the intelligence community about this. It says, "We assess that Iraq can account for Speicher but that Baghdad is concealing information about his fate. Speicher probably survived the loss of his aircraft and, if he survived, almost certainly was captured by the Iraqis."

Q. Why has the United States government seemed to sort of ignore the issue for the last 10 years?

A. They really haven't. In '91 when the crash occurred, he was pronounced dead. The information we had showed he was killed in action. So nobody thought much of it. Then other information came to the surface - that the remains that were repatriated by the Iraqis were not his. There was a crash-site investigation which concluded that he had initiated the getting out of the aircraft, and they found a canopy, they found a flight suit. This came after a young Navy wife who took that information that her husband was killed in action and planned her life again and remarried. This is a very difficult situation.

Q. It's hard not to have a little outrage that the government has not moved a little faster and firmer, especially after they got the remains from Iraq that they knew were not his.

A. It is troubling. But we're beyond that now. I mean, it's important to understand now that they're working with us and they're trying everything under the sun to find Speicher. That's what we really need to be doing."

©OC Register