News-Info-Alerts

Re: Iraq Refuses to Help with Speicher

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: August 21, 2002

"U.S. Says Iraq Refuses to Help on Missing Pilot
BY EVELYN LEOPOLD
Reuters

UNITED NATIONS - The United States accused Iraq on Wednesday of refusing to cooperate on the fate of missing American pilot Michael Scott Speicher, shot down on the first day of the 1991 Gulf War.

U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte raised the issue in the U.N. Security Council, saying that Washington's attempt to get information through a U.N.-backed commission on missing persons chaired by the International Committee of the Red Cross, had brought no results.

"Despite our extensive efforts in this regard, Iraq has continued to assert that they will provide no new information," Negroponte told reporters after the meeting on some 600 Kuwaitis and other nationals missing since Baghdad invaded and occupied the emirate in August 1990.

"We consider their treatment of his case as a perfect example of their noncooperation on this prisoner of war and missing persons issue," he said.

Speicher, then 33, was shot down in his F-18 fighter jet over Iraq in January 1991 and long assumed to be dead. But subsequent reports suggested he could have survived the crash and may be in Iraqi captivity.

In April, Iraq invited the United States to send investigators to look into Speicher's fate. But the Bush administration declined, saying Baghdad's invitation stated it had no information to offer.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell decided on July 8 to send a diplomatic note to Iraq through the ICRC to get more information.

Negroponte made clear this was done.

"We have been in communication with the Iraqi government through the International Committee of the Red Cross. We transmitted to them some detailed questions about the case to which we have received no reply," Negroponte said.

U.S. RAISED ISSUE WITH COMMISSION

A Tuesday report from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the United States had raised the issue at a meeting of a Tripartite Commission in Geneva in early July.

The commission, chaired by the ICRC, includes Gulf War allies the United States, Britain, France and Saudi Arabia, along with Iraq and Kuwait.

But Iraq has boycotted meetings since early 1999, mainly because of the presence of U.S. and British delegates. It says it wants to deal with the Red Cross or Kuwait directly.

The Pentagon initially reported Speicher was killed when his F-18 was shot down. However, last year the Navy changed his status to missing in action, based on new information from U.S. intelligence agencies.

A U.S. military team searched for his remains in 1995 but their mission ended inconclusively. The team found aircraft debris but no human remains.

The U.N. Security Council issued a statement after Wednesday's meeting, calling on Iraq to cooperate with the United Nations on the missing, who include 570 Kuwaitis and 14 Saudis, as well as individuals from Lebanon, India, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain and Oman.

"Iraq has yet to match its words on the fate of missing persons with tangible deeds and cooperation," the statement from the 15-member council said."