March 11, 2002
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States complained to Iraq last week that it had failed to answer questions about a U.S. pilot shot down over Iraq at the start of the Gulf War in 1991, a U.S. spokesman said Monday.
The United States brought up the fate of Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher at a meeting in Geneva Friday of a Tripartite Commission grouping Iraq, the International Red Cross and the Gulf War allies, led by the United States.
"The U.S. delegation, led by U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait Richard Jones, underscored that Iraq continued to shirk its responsibility to answer the many unresolved questions about Commander Speicher's fate," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a daily briefing.
In January 2001, in response to evidence that Speicher might have survived the crash of his plane, the U.S. Navy moved Speicher from "killed in action" to "missing in action."
It asked Iraq for an explanation of what happened to him but the Iraqi authorities have never replied, Boucher said.
A U.S. official said the subject had come up at every meeting since January 2001 of the commission, which is meant to meet about once every three months.
The Washington Times newspaper on Monday said U.S. intelligence agencies had obtained new information indicating that Speicher was alive and in captivity in Iraq.
But a U.S. official, who asked not to be named, disputed the report. "There is no evidence indicating he is still alive," the official said.
Speicher became the first American lost on the first day of the air war when his Navy F-18 attack jet was apparently hit and crashed in a fireball over Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991.
Although no wreckage was initially found, defense officials said Pentagon documents showed U.S. spy satellites more than three years later detected what was described as a man-made symbol at the crash scene. They declined to give details.
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