WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A team searching for a U.S. pilot shot down over Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War has found no evidence he was ever held captive after his jet went down, and a general who once oversaw the search effort has concluded he is dead, U.S. officials said on Monday.
But the Navy has not changed the official status of Capt. Michael Scott Speicher as "missing/captured," a designation reflecting the belief Iraqi forces may have taken him alive after his F/A-18C Hornet went down on Jan. 17, 1991, said Lt. Mike Kafka, a Navy spokesman.
The Iraq Survey Group, which is hunting for evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction but also seeking to determine Speicher's fate, has found "no evidence that he was ever held captive, which means ever being alive after the shoot-down," said a defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another U.S. official, who also asked not to be named, said there was "no indication" the Navy pilot survived after the Hornet went down. Speicher, from Jacksonville, Florida, was 33 when he disappeared.
Army Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, who last month wrapped up a year as the military leader of the Iraq Survey Group, "personally believes that he (Speicher) is not alive," the defense official said.
The official said the Iraq Survey Group was expected to complete a report on Speicher in late September or early October, and that "it's still an open investigation."
"The team is still looking. They're engaged. They continue to follow leads. But as every lead goes to a dry well, it becomes less promising," the official said.
The official noted that information from an Iraqi defector that Speicher survived and was held captive had been discredited. The official said Iraqi doctors who the defector said would know about Speicher have denied any knowledge of him and passed polygraph examinations.
The official said no remains of Speicher have been found, nor other physical evidence such as a uniform or identification material.
Investigators last year found writing that looked like the letters "MSS" on a prison cell wall in Iraq, which some took as a reference to Speicher's initials, but the official said this writing has not been definitively linked to the pilot.
The Navy in October 2002 reclassified Speicher's status as "missing/captured," rather than simply "missing in action."
Adm. Vern Clark, the Navy's top officer, said in March that "we have not found out new specific intelligence revelations that have changed our fundamental conclusion" that Speicher was captured. Kafka said the Navy's views remain unchanged.
ŠArab Times