Clinton defends changing status of downed Gulf War pilot from 'killed' to 'missing'

In this story: Pilot's family to receive his salary Wreckage found in 1994 RELATED STORIES, SITES

From John King CNN Senior White House Correspondent, Andrea Koppel State Department Correspondent, and Chris Plante Military Affairs Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Gulf War pilot initially listed as killed in action was reclassified to missing in action because of evidence "which convinced me that we can't ensure that he perished," President Clinton said.

Clinton spoke to reporters in Boston, Massachusetts, on Thursday, a few hours after saying in an interview with CBS Radio that "we have some information that leads us to believe that he might be alive. And we hope and pray that he is."

Clinton went on in the CBS interview to say, "I don't want to raise false hopes." But some Pentagon officials privately voiced concern that Clinton's remarks could be interpreted as suggesting the government believed Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher was alive.

When the president was asked again about the case later, he used slightly different words.

MESSAGE BOARD Situation in Iraq

"Well I don't want to say any more than we have. All I want to say is we have evidence which convinced me that we can't ensure that he perished. I don't want to hold out false hope, but I thought it was wrong to continue to classify him as killed in action when he might not have been," Clinton said.

A U.S. official familiar with the case said the United States has evidence that Speicher ejected from his aircraft and survived the ejection. "Beyond that the evidence is circumstantial. We can't rule out that he was, at least at one time, alive in Iraq," the official said.

The official added the administration has been pressing Iraqi officials for information for some time and "they are clearly concealing information. We don't have anything to say he is alive. But we can't say he is dead." The official also said information provided by Iraq in the past had turned out to be wrong and said the classification was part of a renewed push to get Iraq to be more forthcoming.

Pilot's family to receive his salary

Navy officials announced the change in status for Speicher on Thursday.

The change means a lump-sum payment of about $300,000 for Speicher's widow and two children, and a resumption of Speicher's salary of about $7,000 per month. Speicher becomes the only casualty from the 1991 Gulf War listed as missing in action.

Defense Department sources close to the case said it was unlikely --though not impossible -- that Speicher, who was on his way to drop bombs on downtown Baghdad, could still be alive nearly 10 years after his F-18 was shot down over Iraq on the opening night of the war.

Defense officials familiar with the episode told CNN that Speicher's "wing man" reported seeing his plane explode in flight and a second explosion upon impact with the ground. No distress signals were ever received, Navy officials said.

Wreckage found in 1994

In 1994, three years after the end of the Gulf War, hunters in the Iraqi desert stumbled across the wreckage of Speicher's plane and informed U.S. officials of their discovery.

Top U.S. military and civilian officials considered whether to send a special team into Iraq to recover the wreckage, but Gen. John Shalikashvili, the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, decided that he would not put U.S. soldiers at risk "for old bones." He decided instead to pursue diplomatic efforts with Iraq to excavate the site, officials said.

Two years later, Iraq allowed a Red Cross team, including Americans from the MIA/POW office, to inspect the site. By then, the official said, the site had been picked over, no human remains were recovered, and there was not a great deal learned from the visit.

There are more than 2,000 U.S. military personnel listed as missing in action from the Vietnam War, more than 8,000 from the Korean War and more than 75,000 Americans listed as missing in action from World War II.

Gulf War pilot no longer presumed dead
January 10, 2001

U.S. State Department
U.S. Department of Defense

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