Iraq Calls U.S. Claims on Navy Pilot a ‘Lie’

The Iraqi government Saturday dismissed as a “lie” fresh U.S. claims that a Navy pilot shot down over Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War might still alive.

“It is a new and cheap American lie,” an Iraqi Ministry of Culture and Information spokesman said. “When the Iraqi Foreign Ministry reveals documents related to the subject, this lie will be an American scandal,” the spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency.

However, the spokesman did not say when the documents about the pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher, will be made public. Speicher was shot down on the first day of the Gulf War.

U.S. intelligence officials in Washington said Friday that there have been unconfirmed reports that Speicher survived the downing of his plane and was seen afterward in Iraqi custody. The Navy has reclassified him as “missing in action.”