[2dogs]

http://www.etherzone.com/2003/lebo032003.shtml

PRAY FOR SPEICHER
THE GULF WAR'S FIRST CASUALTY

By: John LeBoutillier

Of all the things we hope to soon see - for example Saddam and his sons either in US hands or dead - none is more important than the rescue from an underground cell of Michael Scott Speicher, the Gulf War's first casualty.




Back in January of 1991 when Navy pilot Speicher was shot down in Iraq on the first day of the Gulf War, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Colin Powell immediately declared him 'dead.' No investigation; no search teams; no attempt to discover what had happened to our pilot.

It was not until several years into the Clinton Administration that more evidence came to light. Indeed, it looked as if Speicher had survived the shoot-down - and had been driven in a truck to Baghdad.

A steady stream of Iraqi defectors subsequently reported the same thing: a US pilot - presumably Speicher - was being kept in an underground prison complex at Salmon Pak under the personal control of Saddam's elder son, Uday. (This is the same suburban Baghdad location where hijackers have been trained in ajet easily visible to satellites passing overhead.)

Only this past summer did the Bush Administration finally acknowledge the likelihood that Michael Scott Speicher may very well still be alive.

Now comes the key question: will he still be alive after we take down the Saddam Hussein government?

What will the butcher and his two butcher sons do to poor Speicher?

Will they try to use him as leverage to gain their own freedom?

Or will they kill him to avoid yet another certain 'war crimes' trial?

Will we prosecute those who have been holding him all this time?

Let us pray that we soon see the following TV scene: a group of Delta Force troops emerging from some underground facility with a living Michael Scott Speicher.

When - and if - that wonderful day comes, then another series of questions will loom:

How could we ever have left him there in the first place?

Why was no effort made the day he was shot down to rescue him?

Why were Cheney and Powell so quickly willing to write Speicher off?

If indeed Speicher has been held alive against his will for twelve years, what exactly has our intelligence community known about it? If they say that they did not know, then we need to find out exactly why they didn't know. What do we spend over $60 billion a year on intelligence gathering for?

And then comes an even bigger question: if Speicher has been alive all this time, what of the US POW's from the Vietnam War? What has happened to them? Has the same shoddy disregard for their fates also corrupted the truth about their survival?

A lot rests on the next few days.


Related Articles:

Pow Alive In Baghdad... The Cheney-powell Cover-up

Same Old... Same Old Cover-up... Debunkers Are Masters of the Art

Bring Speicher Home... Pentagon Considering Pow Status

[Drizzt]

Team to search for pilot lost since first Gulf war
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Defense and intelligence agencies have formed a special unit that will go into Iraq to search for Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, a missing U.S. Navy pilot believed to have been held captive in Iraq since 1991.

Creating the special unit comes as U.S. intelligence agencies reported last week that an American pilot believed to be Capt. Speicher was spotted alive in Baghdad earlier this month.

A classified intelligence report circulated to officials March 14 stated that Capt. Speicher was seen as he was being moved in Baghdad, although officials said the sighting could not be confirmed.

The joint program by officials of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA, U.S. Central Command and other agencies also will conduct a nationwide search of Iraq for terrorists and chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, said Lt. Cmdr. James Brooks, a DIA spokesman.

"The intelligence community has established a unit to do a country-wide discovery, exploitation and interrogation effort to identify and disrupt terrorist operations; and to identify, examine and eliminate [weapons of mass destruction]," Cmdr. Brooks said in a statement.

"Another function is to determine and resolve the fate of Capt. Speicher," Cmdr. Brooks said.

Capt. Speicher was declared killed in action after his F-18 jet was shot down by a missile over Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991.

Later, intelligence reports indicated that his plane had crash-landed and that Capt. Speicher had ejected. His flight suit was later found during a Red Cross mission to Iraq.

Several intelligence reports from the 1990s also indicated that Iraq was holding an American pilot believed to be Capt. Speicher, and in 2001 the Navy reclassified him from killed in action to missing in action.

In October, Navy Secretary Gordon England changed the status again to "missing in action, captured," effectively declaring Capt. Speicher a prisoner of war.

The Navy determined at the time that wreckage from the F-18, the recovery of Capt. Speicher's flight suit, Iraqi tampering with the downed plane and recent intelligence "continues to suggest strongly that the government of Iraq can account for him."

Baghdad has denied that it was holding Capt. Speicher and invited a U.S. team to visit Iraq last year to investigate. The Pentagon and State Department declined the offer.

U.S. officials hope the ouster of Saddam Hussein in the U.S.-led war will produce definitive proof on whether Capt. Speicher is a prisoner or whether he died in captivity.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters yesterday that finding terrorists and deadly unconventional weapons are among eight key U.S. objectives in Iraq.

Mr. Rumsfeld said the United States hopes to "identify, isolate and eventually eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, production capabilities, and distribution networks."

U.S. forces also will "search for, capture, drive out terrorists who have found safe harbor in Iraq."

The troops also will "collect such intelligence as we can find related to terrorist networks in Iraq and beyond" and intelligence on "the global network of illicit weapons of mass destruction activity," the defense secretary said.

Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in an interview that he and other interested members of Congress have "come a long way from where we were," a reference to bureaucratic resistance to pursuing the Speicher case.

"Every hearing we have, every [congressional delegation] we have, we always mention this issue," said Mr. Roberts, whom intelligence agencies brief regularly on the Speicher case.

The Kansas senator said the Pentagon's Defense Prisoner of War Missing Person Office and the DIA are working on a new assessment of the case, based on the numerous intelligence reports that indicate Iraq is holding an American pilot.

"We're talking about a considerable number of people [in Iraq] who say they've seen an American POW," Mr. Roberts said.

The senator said he is holding out hope for the day when "we see him getting off an airplane" as a free man.

Saddam has admitted holding some POWs for decades. On Tuesday, Iran and Iraq exchanged about 200 prisoners captured by each side during their eight-year war in the 1980s, according to reports from official Iranian and Iraqi news services.

The Washington Times disclosed in March 2002 that U.S. intelligence agencies had new information indicating that Baghdad was holding an American pilot believed to be Capt. Speicher.

A U.S. intelligence report produced in March 2001 stated that "we assess that Iraq can account for Capt. Speicher, but that Baghdad is concealing information about his fate."

The report also stated that Capt. Speicher was "either captured alive or his remains were recovered and brought to Baghdad."

It also concluded that Capt. Speicher "probably survived the loss of his aircraft, and if he survived, he almost certainly was captured by the Iraqis."

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030322-91543515.htm

If someone wants justification for us going into Iraq, here it is...

[waterdog]

Let's pray that he is alive and well.

waterdog

[S_O_Laban]

If someone wants justification for us going into Iraq, here it is...
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AMEN