New evidence missing Gulf War pilot alive in Iraqi jail

The United States is investigating new evidence that a Navy pilot shot down on the first night of the 1991 Gulf War may still be alive and a prisoner on one of Saddam Hussein's jails.

The mystery over the fate of Lt. Commander Michael Scott Speicher was reopened this week by the Washington Times newspaper, which reported British intelligence had recently passed on to the Pentagon new information from a recent visitor to Iraq who had heard there that an American pilot was a prisoner.

The development is the latest twist in a tale which began a few months after Speicher's F-18 was shot down on January 17 1991, at the very start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait. It was first assumed he had died. But a 1995 visit to the crash site found the remains of the aircraft, amid signs that the pilot had successfully ejected.

Four years later, an Iraqi defector reported another sighting, and on January 11 2001, just before he left office, President Clinton ordered Speicher to be reclassified from 'killed in action' to 'missing in action.'

Iraqi officials have always denied the story, and Bill Speicher, Michael's cousin, said this week he was 'sceptical.' Those who hold similar views insist that if the pilot were a prisoner, he would long since have been used for propaganda purposes by Saddam.


Others however claim that the Iraqi leader has often had prisoners held long after the wars in which they were captured. An Iranian captured in the Iran/Iraq war was released after 17 years, in 1998, while some Kuwaitis are still said to be held in Baghdad, almost 12 years after the Iraqi invasion.

A State Department spokesman said yesterday it was using "all channels of communication" to resolve the mystery -- which has re-emerged as the US intensifies its threats to topple Saddam Hussein.

- INDEPENDENT