U.S. Veterans Dispatch
[ Article Submitted Courtesy J. Poe Jr.]
U.S. Veterans Dispatch
Ted Sampley
Lt. Cmdr. Micahel S. Speicher: Expendable
There is no chance Lt. Cmdr. Michael S. Speicher survived, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney assured the American people within hours of the Navy pilot's failure to return to the aircraft carrier Saratoga on the night of Jan. 16, 1991. He was last heard from over Iraqi flying northeast toward Baghdad
Speicher, 33, of Jacksonville, Fla, was the first U. S. pilot shot down in the Gulf War. He left a wife, a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year old son.
On Jan. 18, 1991, less than 48-hours after Speicher became missing, the
Pentagon said his single-seat FA-18 Hornet fighter bomber was shot down
by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile. The plane "exploded to bits" in the
sky after being hit.
"Evidently, pieces of the plane were strewn all over the Iraqi landscape
and Speicher's wing mates saw it happen," the official said.
So, if Speicher and his aircraft "exploded to bits" all over the Iraqi
sky in 1991, why, in December 1995, did a Pentagon team go to Iraq On a
secret mission to look at the wreckage of Speicher's fighter end to
search for his remains?
The search mission, which was led by the International Committee of the
Red Cross and undertaken with the approval of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein, found the wreckage virtually intact and upside down.
Pentagon spokesman Bev Baker said the U.S. team, which conducted a week
long excavation and search of the site, found "no human remains" in the
wreckage or around the crash site.
Evidence is now surfacing indicating that Speicher parachuted from his
plane, landed safely, was alive on the ground and later captured. These
revelations have the Pentagon scrambling for cover. Naval intelligence
is now saying they were never sure why Speicher's plane disintegrated in
midair. They now conclude he either had a freak midair collision with an
Iraqi MIG-25 or that the enemy plane shot him out of the sky.
Pentagon officials told the press in December that a parry of hunters
discovered the crash site of Speicher's Navy FA-18 two years ago and
that as a result, a U.S. spy satellite photographed the crash site.
Intelligence officials conveyed the images to the POW/MIA office at the
Defense Department. Secretary of State Warren Christopher contacted the
Red Cross in Baghdad and requested its assistance.
"Not exactly," a Capitol Hill source familiar with the case told the
U.S. Veteran Dispatch.
"A couple of years ago, Naval Intelligence picked up a story that
Speicher had survived the shoot down and was captured by the Iraqis,"
the source explained.
"As a result, Pentagon intelligence went back and looked at old
satellite imagery of the Speicher crash site which was in a wasteland
far from civilization. Beside Speicher's ejection seat located on the
ground several miles away from the wreckage of the aircraft' the
analysts found the image of a two-letter Escape and Evade (E and E)
symbol used by downed pilots to indicate they are alive and want to be
rescued.
"They also checked the debriefs of other pilots who had been shot down
and released from Iraq. They may have even reinterviewed some of the
former prisoners. One pilot said he was told by his Iraqi captors that
'the guy in the FA-18 shot clown on the first day is on the run and
we're going toe catch him," the source said.
When asked if it was true that the Pentagon had satellite imagery of Speicher's ejection seat and E and E code, Baker said "The Pentagon does not discuss intelligence reports."
She said it was still the position of the Department of Defense that
Speicher was killed in action, body not returned, and that pilot
observation remained the basis of that conclusion.
The U.S. government's rush to declare Speicher dead is a glaring example
of the Pentagon's secret policy of writing off military personnel who
become captured or missing during a conflict as "expendable."
As servicemen and women start falling into the hands of an enemy, the
Pentagon simply declares them missing in action and denies all knowledge
of Americans being captured. If some of the missing are resumed alive at
the end of hostilities, it is a plus for the Pentagon. For those who are
not returned, it is easier for the Pentagon to close the book by
declaring them killed in action, body not returned.
Even after Cable News Network (CNN) reported Iraq's minister of
information saying that American pilots had been captured and that
reporters would be allowed to meet with them, the Pentagon denied
knowledge of any Americans being captured.
"We know of no American prisoners of war," Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly,
operations director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said when asked by
reporters if Iraq were holding any U.S. prisoners of war.
Only after video interviews of allied POWs were broadcast on Iraqi
television and later in the United States did the Pentagon officially
declare that the Iraqis were holding U.S. prisoners.
It was nearly two weeks after 20-year-old Army Spec. Melissa
Rathbun-Nealy and 23 year-old Amy Spec. David Lockett disappeared before
the Pentagon officially declared them missing in action.
The Pentagon had held the two absent without leave (AWOL) despite
eyewitness accounts from American servicemen who saw them being captured
and reports that a captured Iraqi soldier had said he helped transport
two Americans, a white female and a black male (Nealy is white and
Lockett is black.) to Basra, a key Iraqi command center north of Kuwait.
Nealy's father, Leo Rathbun, took matters into his own hands and
appealed directly to Saddam Hussein asking him to acknowledge his
daughter as a prisoner of war.
Rathbun told The Grand Rapids Press that he did not want his daughter
forgotten if a peace plan calling for the release of all prisoners were
ta be signed.
"The Army has not recognized Melissa as a POW and if the war ends, I
believe the Bush administration would ignore the problem of MlAs and
POWs just as previous administrations ignored the MIAs and POWs still
thought to be held in Vietnam," Rathbun said in the interview.
Neither the U.S. or Iraqi governments officially acknowledged that Nealy
and Lockett were prisoners of war until they were released in February
1991.
Is Speicher alive? There certainly is evidence that he was alive after
being shot down and in the absence of credible evidence proving him
dead, all Americans must demand his immediate release.
Dozens more like Speicher are missing as a result of the war with Iraq
and only the Pentagon knows exactly how many.
The Pentagon has always lied to the American people about U.S.
servicemen known to be captives of an enemy. The Iying is as deadly for
the captured and missing as an enemy bullet and it is time for it to
stop. We must demand that our government be absolutely honest and
accurate in accounting for our missing servicemen.
Otherwise, those brave men and women now serving our country in Bosnia
will also be treated as expendable, abandoned to the enemy and allowed
to disappear.
That is exactly what happened to Lt. Cmd. Speicher and many unfortunate
U.S. servicemen captured in Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam and in the
Gulf.
======================================
March 19, 1999
The Honorable Richard Danzig
Secretary of the Navy
Pentagon, Room 4E686
Washington, D.C. 20350-1000
Dear Secretary Danzig:
We are writing to request that you use your authority under
Title 37, USCS, Section 555 (a) and 556 (d) to reconsider and
change or modify the "finding of death" determination made by the
Secretary of the Navy's designee on May 22, 1991 with respect to
Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher, USN. We strongly believe, for
the reasons noted below, that such action is indeed "warranted by
information that has been received and other circumstances," as
provided for in the above-cited law. We have further been advised
that status determinations with respect to Lt. Cmdr. Speicher are
not currently covered by the Missing Persons Act, Title 10, USCS,
Sections 1501-1510, as amended, thereby making action under Title
37 appropriate.
Lt. Cmdr. Speicher was the first American to be listed as
missing in action when his F-18 was lost over Iraq during a combat
strike mission in the first hours of the Gulf War in January, 1991.
When the war ended, the Iraqi Government returned a "soft tissue
fragment and hair bearing skin" which allegedly related to Lt.
Cmdr. Speicher. However, subsequent DNA tests determined the
remains were not those of Lt. Cmdr. Speicher.
The Navy convened a Status Review Board on May 20, 1991 to
consider the state of evidence at that time related to Lt. Cmdr.
Speicher's loss. On May 22, 1991, the late Admiral Mike Boorda,
then Chief of Naval Personnel, approved and signed out the
board-recommended "finding of death" which resulted in Lt. Cmdr.
Speicher's status being changed from missing in action to killed in
action.
In December, 1993, a Qatari official and his hunting party came
upon Lt. Cmdr. Speicher's aircraft wreckage in Iraq. He
immediately forwarded to U.S. military officials pictures of the
plane's canopy, a shard of metal with serial numbers, and passed on
his recollection of having seen the ejection seat as well. Two
years later, in December, 1995, U.S. crash site specialists from
the Department of Defense were permitted to access the crash site,
following coordination efforts between the Iraqi Government and the
International Committee of the Red Cross. The results of the
crash-site investigation were briefed to the Congress in the winter
and spring of 1996. In December, 1997, we were further briefed on
this matter by the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
for International Security Affairs, Frederick Smith, in response to
concerns generated by the attached New York Times story.
In February, 1998, a classified follow-up briefing on this case
was provided to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by the
Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO). In
September, 1998, pursuant to our earlier inquiries on this matter,
the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense provided
to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence a classified
chronology outlining Intelligence Community activities bearing on
the issues raised as a result of Lt. Cmdr. Speicher's loss. The
briefing materials and the chronology referenced above are
available for your review. We strongly believe that the
information contained therein supports the request we are making of
you with this letter.
During the last three years, we understand that the Department
of Defense has refused to authorize any further approaches to the
Iraqi Government concerning the fate of Lt. Cmdr. Speicher "because
of the state of U.S.-Iraqi relations." Nonetheless, our offices
were informed during a briefing we received on March 12, 1999 that
the official publicly-stated position of the Department of Defense
POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) with respect to whether the
available evidence indicates Lt. Cmdr. Speicher perished in his
aircraft incident, is "we don't know." As you know, the DPMO is
charged with developing, implementing, and overseeing policy on
unaccounted for U.S. personnel for the Department of Defense.
In view of the official position of the Department of Defense
and the classified evidence now available to the Department of the
Navy, we believe that the justification for the finding of death
determination in May, 1991, is no longer valid and conclusive. We,
therefore, urge you to use your statutory authority to change the
status of Lt. Cmdr. Speicher back to "missing in action" -- a
status that more accurately reflects the available evidence and
provides a presumptive "benefit of the doubt" to Lt. Cmdr.
Speicher. We owe nothing less to Lt. Cmdr. Speicher and his
family.
We look forward to your response, and thank you for your
personal attention to this very important matter that deeply
concerns us.
Sincerely yours,
<Signed> <Signed>
BOB SMITH ROD GRAMS
United States Senator United States Senator
Graphic
Courtesy
Bear317