News-Info-Alerts

Re: Report Debunks SomeSpeicher Sightings

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: July 18, 2003

"Pentagon report allegedly debunks some sightings of downed pilot of `91

By DAVID GOLDSTEIN The Kansas City Star

WASHINGTON - A secret Pentagon report appears to cast doubt about the chances that Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, a naval pilot shot down during the gulf war, is still alive.

The classified internal Defense Department document questions the credibility of the Iraqi defector who said he had seen Speicher alive in 1998, according to The Washington Times, which obtained a copy of the report.

"No significant evidence" of Speicher's status has been found. The report concluded.

The findings contrast sharply with the generally encouraging assessments about the hunt for Speicher from his backers on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

They have long been critical of the Pentagon's efforts to find him from the moment the Navy learned that his F-18 went down over Iraq of Jan. 17, 1991, in the early hours of the Persian Gulf War.

"I don't understand why people within Defense want to take intelligence on Scott and give it the most negative spin possible," said Cindy Laquidara, a Florida attorney who represents Joanne Harris, Speicher's ex-wife.

Laquidara said she has seen a lot of the classified evidence concerning Speicher and doesn't agree with the conclusions in the recent report.

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, would not comment on classified material. But in a statement issued by his office, Roberts said that he saw the efforts by the teams involved in the search for the missing pilot when he was in Iraq recently.

He said they had obtained new evidence and were trying to verify it.

"I believe we are closer to resolving the fate of Scott than we have been in the last 12 years," Roberts said.

A Kansas City native, Speicher was declared killed in action, but his body was never recovered and questions have lingered for a dozen years. His status has been changed several times. Last fall, the military declared him as "missing-captured." He was considered to be a prisoner of war.

The latest Pentagon report, according to The Times, said several leads in the search had fallen through. Among them were the names of several doctors who the defector said knew of Speicher. But they all denied having knowledge of him and two passed a polygraph exam, according to the newspaper.

The defector, whom U.S. officials called "defector No. 2314," worked for deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's Special Security Organization. The report stated that he told U.S. officials that his supervisor knew that Speicher was being held in an Iraqi prison. But the supervisor denied it and passed a polygraph test. He also called the defector a "born liar."

The report said the discovery of the initials "MSS" found carved in a cell at Hakimiyah prison was the only "significant evidence" found about Speicher.

A Defense Department official who asked to remain anonymous cast doubt on the conclusions in the latest report. He said the view in his agency is that the search has so far been "inconclusive."

To reach David Goldstein, Washington correspondent, call (202) 383-6105, or send email to dgoldstein@krwashington.com"