News-Info-Alerts

Re: Search Continues For Speicher

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: August 06, 2003

"Search continues for last MIA from '91 Iraq war

BY ROGER ROY The Orlando Sentinel

(KRT) - Investigators have yet to prove that missing Gulf War pilot Capt. Scott Speicher was ever held in the Iraqi prison cell where his initials were found etched in the wall, the head of the Pentagon's search for missing Americans said Wednesday.

Speaking to members of the American Veterans convention meeting in Orlando, Jerry D. Jennings, deputy assistant secretary of defense, vowed to continue the search for Speicher, the only American still missing from the 1991 war with Iraq.

The hunt for Speicher remains a top priority for American forces in Iraq, where a $1-million reward is being offered for information about the missing pilot and special teams of U.S. investigators are following every lead, said Jennings. "We will not cease these efforts until we…have recovered him alive or have his remains," Jennings said.

A Navy pilot based in Jacksonville, Speicher, then 33, was flying an F/A-18 Hornet on a bombing run the first night of the 1991 Gulf War when he was shot down over Iraq. He was declared killed in action, but his body was never recovered. He left behind two children and a wife, who has since remarried.

In the years after the war, military officials gathered information suggesting Speicher likely survived ejection from his jet and may have been captured.

In 2001, Speicher's official status was changed to missing in action, and last year to missing/captured.

The search took on new momentum after an Iraqi defector claimed to have seen Speicher alive in Iraq as late as 1998. And in April, at the close of the war with Iraq, investigators found the initials MSS etched in the wall of Hakmiyah prison in Baghdad. Speicher's full name is Michael Scott Speicher.

But military officials now question the reliability of the defector's account.

Investigators were searching for any source of DNA in the prison, which could be compared with samples from Speicher to prove he was there.

Jennings would not say whether DNA was found in the prison cell. But he said there was still no proof putting Speicher in the cell.

There were several sets of other initials carved into the cell walls. And within the "MSS" initials was another letter not part of Speicher's initials, leading some investigators to question the tie to Speicher.

So far, Jennings said, "There's no evidence that he was ever held in that room."

Because the Iraqis denied capturing him, Speicher may have been held outside the normal channels, Jennings said.

"There's just no end of places he could be held," he said. "As long as there's territory that hasn't been investigated, we've got leads to pursue."

©2003 The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.)"