News-Info-Alerts

Re: Kuwaitis: New Regime is Key to Fate of MIAs

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: January 21, 2003

"Kuwaitis: New regime is key to fate of MIAs

By RON MARTZ
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait -- The reminders are plastered on billboards, affixed to car bumpers and printed on grocery and gas station receipts throughout this small Persian Gulf state.

"Don't Forget Our POWs," they say in English and Arabic.

Twelve years after the start of the first Gulf War to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait, Kuwaitis and third-country nationals missing in action or prisoners of war from that conflict remain a sensitive political issue.

Kuwaiti officials hope that if a United States-led effort to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is successful they will finally get some answers about the fate of the still-unaccounted-for 605.

"It's the hope we have. But first they have to get rid of Saddam," said Fowziah al-Tararwah, spokeswoman for the Kuwaiti National Committee for Missing and POW National Affairs.

A successful military campaign also could provide information about the fate of the lone unaccounted-for American.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Scott Speicher of Jacksonville was shot down on the opening night of the war. His F/A-18 Hornet fighter was said to have exploded in mid-air. Speicher was listed as "missing in action" during the war, but his status was later changed to "killed in action, body not recovered."

Evidence uncovered since the end of the war convinced the U.S. government that he probably survived the crash and his status was changed back to MIA in January 2001. Speicher's case was cited in a speech President Bush made to the United Nations last summer when he was pressing his campaign for military action against Iraq.

Speicher is not included in the 605 missing listed by the Kuwaitis. But the 605 include 35 missing from nine different countries, among them 14 Saudis, five Egyptians, four Iranians and four Syrians. The bulk, though, are Kuwaitis. Of those, 474 are civilians and seven are women.

"Most of them have been missing since Aug. 2 [1990]," al-Tararwah said, noting the date of the Iraqi invasion.

With the United States building up its forces in Kuwait, the Iraqis have only recently agreed to resume talks on the missing. On Monday, special United Nations envoy Yuli Vorontsov arrived in Kuwait from Iraq to discuss the issue prior to the meeting today in Amman, Jordan. Vorontsov said the two countries were making "very good progress" in their talks.

Backed by the Kuwaiti government, the National Committee for Missing and POW Affairs has built a large, but rather austere memorial to the missing in the city. It includes drawings of Iraqi prison camps done by a former POW, photos of grieving relatives and a diorama of a prison cell. The most moving portion, though, is the display of 605 photos lining the walls, one for each of the missing.

Kuwaiti officials say 605 people may not seem like many, but they point out that Kuwait has a small population and if the same percentage of Americans were missing, the number would be about 290,000.

At the end of the Gulf War, nearly 6,000 prisoners were released by Iraq. The Iraqi government agreed to two United Nations resolutions calling for the release of prisoners and information about the missing. Kuwaiti officials say the Iraqis have been anything but cooperative, refusing to attend meetings to resolve the issue over the past 12 years. Even the International Committee for the Red Cross has had little success prying information out of Iraq.

Saddam has used the missing as something of a political teaser over the years, promising information when times got tough. He did so in a speech several weeks ago when he tried to justify Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

The Kuwaitis remain skeptical. Abdul Mohsen Jamal, a member of the Kuwaiti Parliament, expressed those reservations in a piece written for the Arabic language newspaper Al-Qabas recently, saying the release of those still being held would mean more than any apology.

"We must focus on this fact so that the people of Iraq know the Kuwaiti POWs are still languishing in Iraqi jails for the past 12 years, some of them Islamic clerics who died long ago and their families are still waiting to receive their remains from the Baghdad regime," Jamal wrote.

There is a growing realization among the relatives that some of the missing may not be alive, said Abdul Hameed al-Attar, a member of the National Committee, whose son is among the missing.

"We're ready to accept that some of them are dead," he said.

But, al-Attar added, "Even if they are alive, [the Iraqis] have to pay huge amounts of money."

-- Wire services contributed to this article.

© 2003 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution"