New Leads Emerge on Missing Flier

Recent publicity about the first U.S. casualty of the 1991 Persian Gulf War has loosed an outpouring of new leads in the mysterious case, including information that could support the notion that the flier survived his crash and was taken prisoner by the Iraqis, according to a U.S. lawmaker.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the leads have come to light since last month, when Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher was officially reclassified from “killed in action” to “missing in action.”

The leads still need to be verified, Roberts said. But he added: “We’re getting a better picture that he certainly did survive the crash. . . . The jigsaw puzzle of what happened to Michael Speicher is becoming more complete.”

Roberts declined to identify the sources of information except to say that people with knowledge of the case contacted U.S. authorities after the burst of worldwide media attention last month.

Some of the sources, however, may be similar to the emigre Iraqis who over the years have given U.S. authorities tips that a Navy flier fitting Speicher’s description was captured, hospitalized and held prisoner in Baghdad. The U.S. government has been skeptical of some of those accounts.

Intelligence officials declined to elaborate on the new information.

Speicher was on a mission to strike Iraqi radars on the first evening of the U.S. air assault on Iraq in January 1991. About 150 miles southwest of Baghdad, his F/A-18 Hornet was struck by an Iraqi-fired missile.

Another U.S. flier said he saw Speicher’s plane consumed in a fireball. Because the wingman saw no parachute open, and because the Navy received no radio signal from Speicher, officials assumed the flier was dead.

The Navy did not conduct a search. And in 1994, when a hunting party from Qatar found the wreckage of the plane, Pentagon officials--despite internal dissent--decided that they did not want to risk U.S. lives pursuing Speicher’s remains.

In 1995, a U.S. team visited the crash site with a Red Cross escort and the permission of the Iraqi government. But the team found that the site had been dug up, presumably by the Iraqi government.

Nevertheless, some clues suggested that Speicher had successfully ejected from the jet and survived the crash. A flight suit, apparently his, was found at a distance from the wrecked aircraft. And spy satellite photos showed man-made images on the desert floor, suggesting that Speicher, though unable to radio for help, might have tried to attract the attention of fellow U.S. pilots.

Some U.S. veterans, and lawmakers such as Roberts and Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), have argued that the military hasn’t pushed hard enough to solve the mystery of Speicher’s fate.

U.S. officials, explaining the reclassification of Speicher, have said they still have no “hard evidence” that he is alive. And they say that many pieces of evidence are ambiguous or unverified.

They say they had simply come to doubt that the earlier evidence, including the wingman’s report, was sufficient to conclude that Speicher was killed in the crash.

The Iraqis have consistently contended that Speicher did not survive the crash. After the State Department last month called on the Iraqis to give a more complete accounting of the case, Iraq denounced the pressure.

Roberts said he has talked about the case with Vice President Dick Cheney, who was defense secretary during the war, and Donald H. Rumsfeld, the current defense secretary, and found their interest “keen.” Roberts said the United States continues to try to coax more information from the Iraqis.

Roberts acknowledged that it remains “very questionable” that Speicher is alive. But he said that some nights he wonders if Speicher wakes up in a Baghdad prison cell wondering, ‘ “Where is my country?’ That’s a haunting question.”