News-Info-Alerts

Re: Deepening the Search for MIAs

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: October 25, 2003

"Vietnam War nations to deepen search for U.S. MIAs
By Darren Schuettler

BANGKOK, Oct 24 (Reuters) - The United States and three Southeast Asian countries pledged on Friday to work together to search for remains of more than 1,800 missing American servicemen from the Vietnam War.

"What's new is we are working now at a very senior level and working together as four nations," senior Pentagon official Jerry Jennings told reporters after four-way talks ended in Bangkok.

It was the first time senior officials from the United States, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos had met to share information and techniques in the hunt for remains of so-called MIAs (missing in action) since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

Some 1,875 American troops are still listed as missing in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from the war, in which 58,000 Americans and three million Vietnamese were killed.

About 300,000 Vietnamese are missing from the war.

Since the war ended, America has sent home more than 700 sets of remains -- many of them found in dense jungle, paddy fields and near villages following the discovery of fragments of bone, dog tags and scraps of downed air craft.

Each year, more than 700 U.S. specialists visit the region to review archives, conduct investigations and organise recovery operations.

The search can be deadly as investigators venturing into remote areas encounter unexploded ordnance, tropical diseases and wild animals.

Seven Americans and nine Vietnamese on an MIA recovery mission were killed in April 2001 when their helicopter crashed.

"There is an element of danger involved every time they go out, most often to very remote sites," said Jennings, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs.

The Bangkok talks explored ways to improve cooperation in searching for remains along Vietnam's border areas with Cambodia and Laos, he said.

Laos and Cambodia's border areas with Vietnam were part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the 1960s name for a collection of hidden trails along which supplies from Hanoi were filtered into warring South Vietnam.

In Cambodia, the remains of 26 of 82 missing U.S. servicemen have been found so far. "We are deeply and profoundly committed to this humanitarian mission. We are willing to continue to do it until (there is) a full account of American missing in Cambodia," said Lapresse Sieng, a senior Cambodian foreign affairs official.

Jennings said Washington's desire to employ retired senior Vietnamese intelligence officials to search classified Vietnam government files for information on MIAs was not discussed at the meeting because it was a bilateral issue with Hanoi.

"It is still something that is under consideration and under discussion with the Vietnamese government and we are very optimistic that we will reach some form of agreement on that subject," he said.

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