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TSA Multipass!!!
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- Apr 15, 2003
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http://www.msnbc.com/news/937296.asp?0cv=CB10
Clues to U.S. pilot reportedly found
Name of Scott Speicher, missing
since Gulf War, on Iraqi POW list
WASHINGTON, July 10 — The U.S. military has found a document referring to Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher, the Navy pilot whose fate has remained a mystery since his fighter jet was shot down over Iraq on the first night of the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. officials told NBC News on Thursday.
THE OFFICIALS said analysts were working to determine the meaning of the 90-page document, dated January 2003, which listed prisoners of war held by the government of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The document includes Speicher’s name, officials said. It could not immediately be determined whether it included any dates or locations where Speicher might have been held, but in April, U.S. investigators found Speicher’s initials carved into the wall of a cell in the Hakmiyah prison in Baghdad.
Saddam’s government insisted publicly that Speicher was killed when his F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet was shot down over Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991.
NO OBVIOUS CLUES
Iraq denied holding Speicher as a prisoner, but the Defense Department last year formally changed his status from “killed in action” to “missing-captured.”
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Fla., who has pressed the government to resolve the question of Speicher’s fate, told reporters Wednesday after visiting the Hakmiyah prison that new information gave him reason to be optimistic that the mystery could be solved. He said he could not elaborate because the information was highly classified.
U.S. officials cautioned that the document did nothing to clarify what really happened to Speicher 12 years ago or whether he was still alive. The recent date could mean Iraqi officials were hastily trying to create an accurate record of POWs or that they were falsifying a document to mislead U.S. investigators, they said.
Clues to U.S. pilot reportedly found
Name of Scott Speicher, missing
since Gulf War, on Iraqi POW list
WASHINGTON, July 10 — The U.S. military has found a document referring to Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher, the Navy pilot whose fate has remained a mystery since his fighter jet was shot down over Iraq on the first night of the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. officials told NBC News on Thursday.
THE OFFICIALS said analysts were working to determine the meaning of the 90-page document, dated January 2003, which listed prisoners of war held by the government of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The document includes Speicher’s name, officials said. It could not immediately be determined whether it included any dates or locations where Speicher might have been held, but in April, U.S. investigators found Speicher’s initials carved into the wall of a cell in the Hakmiyah prison in Baghdad.
Saddam’s government insisted publicly that Speicher was killed when his F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet was shot down over Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991.
NO OBVIOUS CLUES
Iraq denied holding Speicher as a prisoner, but the Defense Department last year formally changed his status from “killed in action” to “missing-captured.”
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Fla., who has pressed the government to resolve the question of Speicher’s fate, told reporters Wednesday after visiting the Hakmiyah prison that new information gave him reason to be optimistic that the mystery could be solved. He said he could not elaborate because the information was highly classified.
U.S. officials cautioned that the document did nothing to clarify what really happened to Speicher 12 years ago or whether he was still alive. The recent date could mean Iraqi officials were hastily trying to create an accurate record of POWs or that they were falsifying a document to mislead U.S. investigators, they said.
