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Pentagon Considering Sending Inspectors to Iraq to Investigate Fate of Missing Pilot

Aired August 14, 2002 - 12:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: The Pentagon is considering an offer to send inspectors to Iraq, not to look for weapons, but to investigate the fate of a Navy pilot missing for more than a decade.
CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has been working on the story this morning, and she joins us live with the latest on that.

Barbara, it's been a long time.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It has, Carol, indeed. CNN has learned today that the Pentagon is now actively considering, again, changing the status of Scott Speicher.

Now as you will remember, Scott Speicher is the Navy pilot shot down over Iraq in the opening hours of Operation Desert Storm a decade ago. He was initially listed as killed in action, but over the years, there was consist rumors, reports, all unverified, of a Westerner being held in Baghdad. At that point, shortly before the Clinton administration left office, they changed Scott Speicher's status to missing in action.

Well, we have learned today that the bush administration is now considering changing his status again to "missing-captured." There is no evidence at the moment of course that Scott Speicher remains alive, that he has been captured by Baghdad, that he is anywhere in Iraq. It is widely believed that he is dead and has been for some years.

But the books remain open on the Speicher case, because no one can verify exactly how and when Scott Speicher died. There is some consideration. There are some people in the U.S. Navy that strongly believe that the pilot did survive briefly, when he ejected from his F-18, when he was shot down by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile, that he may have been briefly alive on the ground, and then died at some point.

It's been a matter of some pain to the Navy that they never went to look for him, that, as one official said to us today, this is something that fell between the cracks a decade ago, and we still haven't really resolved it.

But what we do know is they're now looking at changing his status to missing-captured. We are led strongly to believe that this move is being pressed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who is a well-known hard-liner against Iraq, and that this move might, they believe, pressure Iraq to finally tell the United States what did happen to Scott Speicher. There is a lot of people in the Navy, though, that are very skeptical of this. They see it as a political move, because there is no evidence that Scott Speicher is alive. As one Navy officer said, this could become reason number 39 to go bomb Iraq -- Carol.

LIN: Barbara, very quickly, any reaction from Speicher's family?

STARR: Not at this time, and that is because, we should emphasize, this decision has not been finalized to reclassify Speicher to missing-captured. It is under very active discussion within the Pentagon, and it would have to be finally signed off on by the secretary of the navy. That has not yet happened, because it will be very controversial, since there is no evidence that he currently is captured.

So until there is a final decision, until the White House possibly gives its OK, there is no further movement on this, other than these internal discussions we've learned about.

Interesting that they're talking about it. Thank you very much, Barbara Starr, live at the Pentagon.

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