Status of Gulf War pilot still unknown
By Robert Burns
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — U.S. investigators searching in Iraq for clues to the fate of missing Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher, shot down on the opening night of the 1991 Gulf War, have returned to an early hypothesis: that he died at or near the site where his F-18 fighter crashed.
A later theory — that he was captured alive and imprisoned in Baghdad — has been largely dismissed, based on postwar interrogations of Iraqi officials, searches of the prison system and assessments of Iraqi government documents, defense officials familiar with the search said.
Michael Scott Speicher was shot down in 1991.
The idea that Speicher was a prisoner gained currency after intelligence reports in the late 1990s cited claims by Iraqi sources that an American pilot was being held in Baghdad. Upon closer examination since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime those claims have unraveled, officials said.
Defense officials said investigators have not abandoned the search in Baghdad or reached any conclusion about Speicher's fate. But they have found nothing so far to support the theory that Speicher had been held alive in an Iraqi prison.
This has taken investigators back to the theory that if he survived the shootdown Jan. 17, 1991, over west-central Iraq, then he most likely died there shortly afterward.
Some of the documents found since the fall of Baghdad indicate that Iraqi government officials were befuddled by continuing U.S. government inquiries about the possibility of Speicher being held alive. U.S. investigators deduced from this that the Iraqis had no knowledge of Speicher being held. That is consistent with Iraq's public position from the start.
The Iraqis asserted that Speicher had died in the crash, but they never produced his remains. In March 1991 the Iraqis returned a small amount of human remains and identified them as a pilot named "Mickel," but laboratory tests revealed that they were not Speicher's remains.
Just hours after Speicher was shot down on the opening night of the 1991 war, the Pentagon declared him killed in action. But in January 2001 the Navy changed his status to missing in action, reflecting an absence of evidence that he died in the crash. Last October, the Navy changed it again, to missing-captured, indicating a belief that the Iraqis had taken him alive.
In March 2001, U.S. intelligence agencies said in a report to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Speicher probably ejected safely from his plane and it was struck by a missile.
"We assess Lt. Cmdr. Speicher was either captured alive or his remains were recovered and brought to Baghdad," the report said. In either case, the Iraqi government has concealed information about his fate, it said.
But now prewar intelligence reports indicating that Speicher was being held in prison are believed to have been based on faulty information.
Invading U.S. forces in April reported finding the initials "MSS" scratched into a cell wall in an Iraqi prison, fueling speculation that Speicher had been held there at some point. But preliminary tests on hair found in the cell's drain showed it did not match Speicher's DNA, and officials do not believe the MSS initials were put there by Speicher.
In December 1995 a team of U.S. experts searched the crash site with the Iraqi government's permission. They found wreckage of Speicher's aircraft but no sign of the pilot other than a flight suit that the Iraqis said they found at the site. The Navy said the flight suit was of the type and size Speicher would have worn, but tests have not established a firm link.
The site surveyors concluded from evidence available then that Speicher probably survived the shootdown.
Speicher, of Jacksonville, Fla., was 33 years old when he was shot down. He held the rank of lieutenant commander at the time; he has since been promoted to captain.
