Iraq Offers Talks On Missing U.S. Pilot

NEWSMAX ^ | 3/25/02 | (UPI)

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Iraq Sunday invited the United States to send a team to Baghdad for talks on the fate of an American pilot missing since the Persian Gulf war.

Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher was lost when his Navy F/A-18 Hornet jet was shot down on Jan. 17, 1991, the first night of the war.

"Iraq is ready to receive any American team, accompanied by U.S. media, in order to discuss and document this issue under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross," said a statement issued by the ministry of foreign affairs in Baghdad.

But a spokesman for the ministry said Iraq believes the pilot is dead. "We have nothing to add to the findings of a previous U.S. team which visited Iraq in 1995 and concluded that the pilot was dead."

Quoting the spokesman, the state-run Iraqi News Agency said that in Dec. 1995 the U.S. team had visited "Iraq's western desert where Speicher's plane was downed, checked the wreckage and confirmed his death."

The spokesman said another team searched the area in 1993, using helicopters equipped with advanced radars but only found the wreckage.

First Casualty of War

The Pentagon told United Press International in Washington that it had listed the 33-year old pilot as the first casualty of the Gulf War in 1991, and re-affirmed that finding in Sept. 1996, following the 1995 visit to the crash site, which it said was carried out by investigators from the Navy and Army’s Central Identification Laboratory.

In Jan. 2001, Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig changed the U.S. position and re-designated Speicher as missing in action. Subsequently, the State Department sent a formal demarche to Baghdad asking for more information about him.

U.S. officials told UPI that they "consistently sought new information … to resolve Speicher’s fate.” They said Danzig’s decision followed "additional information and analysis” that emerged since 1995.

But the Iraqi spokesman said there were "contradictions in the American claim," adding that it was willing to welcome a U.S. team to "avoid further confusion."

[Kobyashi1942]

Once again, the lesson learned here is that the US doesn't take care of its own. Shame on you Bush. Shame on you American public for not taking to the streets demanding his return. Eventually, the blame rests on this catatonic American public for getting us in this mess in the first place.

[usconservative]

Once again, the lesson learned here is that the US doesn't take care of its own. Shame on you Bush.

Are you completely ignorant of the fact that the first reports of this pilot actually being alive instead of dead as was previously thought, happened during the Clinton administration? And the fact that the Clinton Administration did nothing about it? Or are you deliberately trying to mislead people into thinking that former President Bush deliberately left one of our pilots alive in Iraq?

Which is it?

[Enlightiator]

Which is it?

Umm, is that all the choices he is allowed? Whew, tough game show quiz....lol.

[Slam]

Happy Easter Scott...wherever you are?

[Slam]

In the english language we would say what great insight and leave out the a .

Thank you though.