News-Info-Alerts

Re: Pentagon Says No Proof on Speicher

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: August 07, 2003

"Pentagon: No proof missing Navy pilot detained

Navy pilot Scott Speicher was shot down on the first day of the Gulf War.

ORLANDO, Florida (AP) -- Investigators have yet to prove that missing Navy pilot Scott Speicher was ever held in the Iraqi prison cell where his initials were found etched in the wall, a top Pentagon official said.

Speicher has been missing in Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War. The search for him has intensified since investigators found the initials "MSS" scratched into the wall of a cell in April. Those are the same initials as Michael Scott Speicher, but officials are awaiting the results of DNA tests to determine if he was housed in that cell, according to a report in the Orlando Sentinel.

Speaking Wednesday to members of the American Veterans convention meeting, Jerry D. Jennings, deputy assistant secretary of defense, said there was "no evidence" that places Speicher in the cell.

Jennings declined to say whether DNA was found in the prison cell. But he said there was still no proof that Speicher was in the cell.

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

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

Jennings, the head of the Pentagon's search for missing Americans, vowed that Speicher remains a top priority for American forces in Iraq, where a $1 million reward is being offered for information about the missing pilot. Special teams of U.S. investigators are following every lead, he said.

"We will not cease these efforts until we ... have recovered him alive or have his remains," Jennings said.

The Pentagon declared Speicher killed in action when his FA-18 Hornet was shot down over Iraq on January 17, 1991. A decade later, it changed his status to prisoner of war after an Iraqi defector and others reported that an American was being held in Saddam Hussein's prison system. Speicher is the only military pilot still unaccounted for from the 1991 Gulf War.

©2003 The Associated Press
©2003 Cable News Network LP, LLLP"