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Re: "Took Act Of Congress to Get DoD to Report"
From: POW-MIA InterNetwork
Date: March 29, 2003
"Pentagon Report On Speicher Sheds Little Light On Fate
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., says the first official Pentagon report ever delivered to Congress about missing Navy pilot Scott Speicher detailed evidence that led officials to concluded that Speicher likely survived the crash, but offers no conclusive information about his fate.
Nelson briefed family representatives of Speicher's family in Jacksonville Friday morning about the report, then told Channel 4 that the military has "special plans" to search for the pilot.
"He and the other prisoners of the current war are in the thoughts and prayers of all Americans," Nelson said. "What I hope is next is we're going to find him and get him out alive."
Speicher's F/A-18 was shot down over Iraq in January 1991 during the opening air campaign in the first Gulf War. He was initially considered killed in action, but a decade later the Defense Department changed his status to "missing/captured" after an Iraqi defector and others reported seeing him alive.
Sen. Nelson Shares Report With Speicher Family
One report detailed that Speicher was driven to a hospital after he bailed out over the Iraqi desert; another said that an American was being held in Saddam Hussein's prison system.
Iraq has insisted that Speicher did not survive.
The Pentagon is now required a law sponsored by Nelson to update Congress every 90 days on the status of Speicher, a Jacksonville native who was flying off the USS Saratoga.
"It took an act of Congress for us to get the (Department of Defense) to report," Nelson said.
Much of the report remains classified, but Nelson said the report does not address recent a intelligence report that Speicher was sighted being moved in Baghdad earlier this month.
Read Complete Declassified Pentagon Report
http://billnelson.senate.gov/images/UCSpeicher.pdf
Copyright 2003 by News4Jax.com. "
AII POW-MIA posted a text-only version and jpegs of the pages some months ago at:
http://www.aiipowmia.com/pgw/speichersnie.html
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