News-Info-Alerts

Re: The Plan Is To Find the Answer to the Question

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: August 07, 2003

"House member views prison where missing pilot might have been
Florida lawmaker says progress being made in learning soldier's fate after plane shot down

"It's clear he's not forgotten. It's clear we're not going to give up. The plan is to find the answer to the question, 'What was the fate of Scott Speicher?'" --U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A flashlight flickered above U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw's head Friday, lighting up a spot on the wall of the tiny cell in Hakmiyah prison where Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher might have been held after being shot down over Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.

Etched into the wall were the initials MSS. Crenshaw reached out and touched them. The six-foot by 10-foot cell had a hole in the floor for a toilet.

"It makes you feel sad in a sense, but it also makes you hopeful," said Crenshaw, who planned to meet Speicher's family in Jacksonville, Fla. -- his district -- to brief them on his visit. "It was important for me to come here."

Crenshaw said the fate of the missing pilot was still unclear. Investigators from the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency working in Iraq were "making progress in coming to closure," he said.

They were combing prison documents and waiting for DNA tests results to determine whether Speicher stayed in the cell.

Crenshaw and House Majority leader Tom Delay visited the prison after meetings with L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator in Iraq, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. ground forces. The politicians were briefed on the coalition's progress in rebuilding and securing the country.

"It's clear he's not forgotten," Crenshaw said of Speicher. "It's clear we are not going to give up. The plan is in place to find the answer to the question, 'What was the fate of Scott Speicher?' "

The Pentagon declared Speicher killed in action when his FA-18 Hornet was shot down over Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991. His flight suit was found at the crash site.

The Pentagon changed Speicher's status a decade later to prisoner of war after an Iraqi defector and others reported that an American was being held in Saddam Hussein's prison system. He is the only military pilot still unaccounted for from the 1991 Gulf War.

There are no U.S. soldiers missing from the Iraq war. Army Sgt. Edward J. Anguiano, 24, of Brownsville, Texas, disappeared after his convoy was ambushed March 23, but his remains have since been found.

©2003 The Olympian, Olympia Washington"