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American Morning
Pentagon Considering Iraq's Offer to Send Team of Inspectors to Investigate What Happened to Downed U.S. Pilot
Aired April 10, 2002 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning, CNN has learned that the Pentagon is seriously considering Iraq's offer to send a team of U.S. inspectors into Iraq to investigate what happened to downed U.S. pilot Lt. Commander Scott Speicher. The mystery surrounding the navy pilot's fate has only grown over time, and in just the past few months, there were new reports that he may still be alive. Let's turn to Barbara Starr who joins us from the Pentagon this morning with all the details. Good morning Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
Well we have learned that, yes the Pentagon is now drafting a response to Iraq's most recent offer of a few weeks ago to allow a team of U.S. inspectors to go into Iraq and try and learn the fate of Commander Scott Speicher. His fate has been a mystery for more than a decade. He was shot down in the opening hours of Operation Desert Storm and no one has ever really determined what happened to him.
His body was never recovered. There have been continuing rumors, mysteries for years, that he survived being shot down, that he was held in captivity by the Iraqis, that he perhaps was held briefly and then died, that, perhaps he is still in captivity. None of the rumors have ever been confirmed.
The U.S. view is that Iraq does know what happened to Scott Speicher and has been unwilling to say so. But Iraq made this very interesting offer a few weeks ago to allow a team of U.S. inspectors to go into the country and investigate the matter one more time.
The Pentagon has now formally received this offer from Baghdad through diplomatic channels. A draft response is being formulated. But we are being told by the Pentagon this morning that it is not at all certain the U.S. will accept the offer. Iraq, of course, has put down several conditions. One, it wants assurances that there will be a lot of media coverage of any U.S. mission to Iraq. It also wants assurances that a man named Scott Rider (ph), a former U.N. weapon's inspector who has been critical of U.S. policies in the past would be part of that inspection team.
Now the Pentagon says it doesn't want to necessarily agree to any of these conditions. What it wants is unconditional access to information sites, material inside Iraq that can tell the Pentagon once and for all what really happened to Commander Scott Speicher more than a decade ago when he was shot down during Desert Storm - Paula.
ZAHN: Barbara, before we let you go, I wanted to quickly move on to the Middle East. What is the level of concern there, particularly as the reports of action heating up along the northern boarder of Israel with Hezbollah firing missiles into Israel and Israel returning fire into Lebanon?
STARR: Well you know it's very interesting. For the last several days, as all of this has been going on, the Pentagon has been on the sidelines. Of course, there's no U.S. military involvement in the unrest in the Middle East right now.
But a very startling comment this morning from a senior military official here in the building very much on background. He for the first time said the U.S. military is very worried. And why is that? Well the reason he says is at this point they believe, the U.S. military believes that the moderate Arab, the U.S. militaries most staunch Persian Gulf allies, are so upset with the Bush Administration with what is going on in the Middle East that the U.S. military, for the first time, is concerned about the support it will get in the war on terrorism from these Persian Gulf allies.
As this one official said to us, if we asked one of these countries right now for the slightest bit of help with the war on terrorism, we're not sure they'd say yes - Paula.
ZAHN: Well that's certainly complicates Secretary Powell's mission; doesn't it?
STARR: It does.
ZAHN: All right, Barbara Starr thanks for that update.
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