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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Is Still U.S. Pilot Alive, in Iraqi Hands?; Search for al Qaeda Continues in Afghanistan

Aired March 15, 2002 - 19:00   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.
ANDREA KOPPEL, GUEST HOST: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS, THE WAR ROOM: A pilot's fate. Could he still be alive and in Iraqi hands more than a decade after the Gulf War?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We do not know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: I'll speak with a friend who has kept the faith and with Senator Pat Roberts of the armed services and intelligence committees.

A victory, but the battle's not over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. SOLDIER: Approximately 1,000 soldiers continue to aggressively search for the terrorists.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: We'll get the latest from the frontlines in Afghanistan.

And I'll ask former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger if and when he thinks the war will widen to include Iraq, as we go into THE WAR ROOM.

Good evening. I'm Andrea Koppel reporting tonight from Washington. Wolf Blitzer has the evening off.

As U.S. forces battle al Qaeda and Taliban diehards in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, planners are looking at other possible targets in the war on terrorism. More and more speculation centers on a strike at some point against the regime of Saddam Hussein, even as unsettling questions remain from an earlier campaign against Iraq.

First, to Operation Anaconda. Military officials say another 600 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division are on their way to Afghanistan while troops already on the ground keep a pressure on a battered enemy. CNN's Nic Robertson is near the frontlines in Gardez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Afghan commanders say they have now searched some caves in the Shah-e- Kot valley area. They say they have found some dead Taliban and al Qaeda members there and they have also sealed up some of these cave areas.

In the early hours of the morning, both Afghan and U.S. special forces in the village of Shah-e-Kot came under a 90-minute attack from Taliban -- from about 10 Taliban or al Qaeda members. The special forces returned fire. Nobody was injured in that exchange.

Also, throughout the day, we've heard sporadic gun battle exchanges between Taliban/al Qaeda members and also the coalition forces, about 1,000 of whom are still on the ground around the Shah-e- Kot valley area. There has been also intensive surveillance aircraft activity in the area. We've seen helicopter gunships flying in the area as well, but also some sporadic bombing in the mountains behind the Shah-e-Kot valley area.

Operation Anaconda appears to be going on at full force. However, we cannot get into that valley area to get to the caves ourselves to perhaps search for more of the dead Taliban members, al Qaeda members who are rumored to be in there. That's off limits. U.S. special forces are enforcing a military zone and we cannot get in there.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Gardez, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL: He was presumed killed in action when his plane was downed at the start of the Gulf War. Later, doubts and investigations, his status was altered to missing. And now the Pentagon is considering listing him as a POW. He's the only American unaccounted for from that war. CNN national correspondent Bob Franken reports on a pilot's fate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT SPEICHER: I'm Scott Speicher of VFA-81 out here on the Saratoga.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): An unclassified year-old intelligence summary obtained by CNN describes as inconclusive evidence that would establish whether Lieutenant Commander Michael Scott Speicher survived when his Navy jet was shot down over Iraq January 17, 1991. That was the first night of the Desert Storm air war. Eleven years later, questions persist. Did he survive, and is he still alive, still a captive of Saddam Hussein?

RUMSFELD: We do not know. There has been a very serious effort on the part of the United States government over a sustained period to try to gather as much information as possible. And some of it is information that is from sources that require it to be classified. Some of it isn't. Some of it is speculation. Some of it -- most of it is unauthoritative.

FRANKEN: The questions about Scott Speicher resurfaced just as the Bush administration is trying to create a consensus for possible action against Iraq.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It reinforces the fact that anybody who would be so cold and heartless as to hold an American flyer for all this period of time without notification to his family, just wouldn't put it past me -- wouldn't put it past him given the fact that he gassed his own people.

FRANKEN: The administration just doesn't know, nor did President Clinton. But just before he left office last year, he said Speicher might be alive.

SPEICHER: Hello to my wife, Joanne (ph), my son, Michael and Megan (ph). I love you and I miss you.

FRANKEN: That was Scott Speicher a month before he was shot down. Although his wife is remarried, she has spent years along with family members and supporters trying to force the issue, wrestling with intelligence and defense agencies over their conclusion Speicher is dead, in spite of tantalizing reports of sightings.

MIKE BUZZELL, MICHAEL SPEICHER'S FRIEND: We've got factual evidence based on two eyewitness sources, OK? They corroborated each other, many years apart.

FRANKEN: Baghdad is concealing information about his fate, says the intelligence summary. Lieutenant Commander Speicher probably survived the loss of his aircraft and, if he survived, he almost certainly was captured by the Iraqis. Kansas Republican senator Pat Roberts...

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R-KS), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Iraq first said that he was eaten by wolves. Secondly, they sent a canister of remains that DNA proved were not Scott Speicher. I mean, what kind of a country would do that?

FRANKEN: Speicher's official status was changed by President Clinton January of last year from killed in action to missing in action. Pentagon officials tell CNN there is an internal debate over reclassification again to prisoner of war to put additional pressure on Iraq. Family and friends have other ideas.

CINDY LAQUIDARA, FAMILY ATTORNEY: If they have something we want, I negotiate for a living. If they have something we want, we need to negotiate to get it back. I know we have lots of things that they want.

FRANKEN: Some defense sources say that Saddam Hussein would have long ago used the captured pilot for propaganda or leverage. But supporters counter it's impossible to figure out how Saddam Hussein thinks.

(on camera): That is why one intelligence source told CNN he is worried that the very fact there is public conversation about Scott Speicher could put him in danger, if he's alive.

Bob Franken, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL: So even now, 11 years after his plane was downed, the fate of Michael Speicher remains a mystery. Joining me here in THE WAR ROOM, Senator Pat Roberts, a member of the armed services and intelligence committees; from New York, Mike Buzzell, a friend of Michael Speicher and best man at his wedding. He, too, was a Navy pilot. And here in THE WAR ROOM, former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. As deputy secretary, he played a key role in keeping the Gulf War coalition together. Remember, you can e-mail your WAR ROOM questions to cnn.com/wolf.

Senator, I'd like to begin with you. You're on the Senate intelligence committee. Today, Jamie McIntyre, our military affairs correspondent, reported that the Pentagon is saying it has no evidence, no credible evidence, that Michael Speicher is alive. Presumably, you're seeing evidence that the rest of us isn't. What makes you think he is?

ROBERTS: I wish the Pentagon would read the CIA assessment, which is now unclassified, that says, here's the bottom line. There is no evidence that Commander Speicher died as a result of the plane crash when his plane was shot down way back in January, 11 years ago, and more than likely, he was captured and was a prisoner of the Iraqis.

Now, contrary to all of that, there are many reports, and continued intelligence reports, that indicate he may be alive. Now, I said may be alive. I didn't say he was alive. But they've got the presumption turned around. It's not fair to Scott Speicher and all of us who have been interested in this case, in my case, about four or five years now. And it's certainly not to his family and certainly not to every serviceman and woman when we have a preponderance of evidence that say A: he survived the crash; and B: he was likely taken prisoner. And then, more and more reports tend to come in.

And if you put that mosaic together and you connect the dots, more and more you become convinced he may be alive. So we must pursue, and I mean absolutely pursue, every avenue to determine his fate, and if, in fact, he is alive, certainly his release.

KOPPEL: Well, another person who has a great deal of interest in knowing whether or not Michael Speicher is alive is the man who was his best friend at his wedding, Mike Buzzell. I want to ask you, Mike, obviously you're not looking at the intelligence, but you know Michael Speicher better than any of us. Can you tell us about his strength of spirit? Do you think that this is a guy who could still be alive 11 years later?

BUZZELL: Well, it's a very good question, and I'm going to give you the direct answer. The information that I have seen based on the unclassified reports is enough for me to come to the conclusion that he is alive. Yes, we can get more information. We can continue to analyze this. And basically, what we have, is paralysis through analysis.

KOPPEL: Well, tell us what...

BUZZELL: We continue to get this thing and we just keep batting it around. And I want to say one thing to Mr. Roberts. I am so appreciative of what you've done for the Speicher family, for Scott Speicher. You are a true patriot, a true American.

ROBERTS: Well, thank you.

KOPPEL: Mike, I wanted to also ask you, as a former Navy pilot, you went through top gun school with Michael. There were some intelligence reports that have been released or at least talked about in the news recently that have to do with satellite imagery that shows what looks to be some kind of a man-made signal in the sand. Is that something that you all were trained to do?

BUZZELL: Well, my knowledge of what that signal looks like is not that good. I'm not sure what it looks like. However, yes, we are trained to try to signal. I want to make a very important point here as far as the mistakes that were made on that first night. What we did to the aircraft that flew off that ship that night is we disconnected the ELTs, the emergency locator transponder. That's a very significant point and should raise the hair on the back of the neck of every Navy pilot, military pilot out there...

KOPPEL: And what does that mean, Mike?

BUZZELL: ... because that transponder, when someone ejects, goes off and creates a signal for us to follow, for us to know that an ejection has occurred. By disconnecting those transponders, we did not have that signal and that was the basis, as far as our decision, not to launch a search and rescue. Very significant point. Very significant.

As far as -- all he had left was some sort of a ground signal. That's all he's had left. And the thing that really irritates me is how long did it take us to get over there to try to look for that particular signal? I'm going to tell you something. We knew that night exactly where that crash was. We had the location. We didn't go in there. And the mantra, the song that we continue to sing, is we don't leave people behind. We do not leave people behind. Well, I'm not sure that was the case that night.

KOPPEL: Mike, I want to ask both the senator and Secretary Eagleburger an e-mail question that came to us from Jim and St. John, New Brunswick. Jim writes: "I can't believe that with all the assets the U.S. intelligence community has that it cannot be confirmed if indeed Mike Speicher is alive and being held in Iraq." Secretary Eagleburger?

LAWRENCE EAGLEBURGER, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, I can understand why we haven't been able to one way or the other. What I think is important is what the senator pointed out, which is that we sat around doing nothing for too long without trying to pursue it. I can understand with all of the facilities we have, how do you locate one person in a country, when they are trying to hide him if that is in fact what they are trying to do.

KOPPEL: But the fact of the matter is, as we heard Mike just say, we waited for years before we even tried to go in.

EAGLEBURGER: No, no. See, that I understand and it's a legitimate complaint. And, again, I would have to say the senator is the one that's raised it and put it where it ought to be, which is out in public view.

ROBERTS: Well, I think left somebody behind. I don't think there is any question about it. We decided early on we could look back and we could ask people to come back in that made these decisions very early on. We are trying to focus on the future.

What we really try to do is task the CIA to make the first ever intelligence assessment. And they confirmed exactly what his friend is indicating, that no evidence that he died. Every evidence he was taken prisoner and more and more reports, more intelligence reports that come in that he could be alive.

Now, we have changed his classification from MIA, now we are waiting on POW. We've changed the law so it won't happen again in terms of intelligence assessment. We are making progress.

KOPPEL: Mike, in New York, just very quickly, in 15 seconds, what do you want the U.S. government to do?

BUZZELL: I want the U.S. government to do everything possible, based on the evidence that we have today. I want them -- this to be in the forefront of the issues that are before the president today. And it's starting to look that way, too, only because of people like Senator Roberts. He's starting questions. President Bush is going to answer those questions. And I am in complete faith that he'll do the right thing. He's a good man. He's our president and I stand behind him, as do the rest of the country.

Mike Buzzell in New York, I want to thank you for joining us this evening.

BUZZELL: Thank you.

KOPPEL: It was very kind of you to take time out.

BUZZELL: Appreciate it.

KOPPEL: When we come back, why is Iraq considered the most evil member of the evil axis?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Welcome back.

We will continue with THE WAR ROOM for a moment. But first, we want to update you on a story that CNN has been following all afternoon. A Texas jury today sentenced Andrea Pia Yates to life in prison. She'll have to serve 40 years before becoming eligible for parole. Earlier this week, the same jury found Yates guilty of two counts of capital murder for drowning her children in a bathtub. Outside of the courtroom, Yates' husband today commented on the outcome.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSSELL YATES, ANDREA YATES' HUSBAND: We didn't see her as a danger. The real question to me is, you know, how could she have been so ill, and the medical community, you know, not diagnose her, not treat her and also not protect our family from her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: Much more on this story is coming up at the bottom of this hour on "CROSSFIRE."

Now, we are going to go back to our WAR ROOM discussion with former -- with -- excuse me -- with former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and with Senator Pat Roberts. I'd like to start with you, Secretary Eagleburger. Is it Saddam's M.O., Saddam Hussein's M.O., to keep an American military guy in prison for 11 years and not make a propaganda issue out of it?

EAGLEBURGER: I don't see any way you can answer the question because I think it was the senator that said earlier, you got to get your -- you got to get inside his head. And I'm not sure anybody can. He's totally unpredictable. I would say this and only this. I cannot imagine why he would do it and not make some noise about it, but at the same time, I must tell you that that's what I think is a rational way to view it, not necessarily the way he would view it.

KOPPEL: Today, Crown Prince Abdullah, the Saudi crown prince, in an interview with CNN's Rula Amin said this is not the time to go after Saddam Hussein. Can we do it? I ask both of you. Can we do it without the help of Saudi Arabia and other allies in the region?

ROBERTS: Well, I'll take a stab at it. I don't think we will. When I talked to the president some weeks ago, and I also brought up the matter of Commander Speicher, he indicated that he wasn't going to war against the axis of evil countries. He was not so gently tapping them on the shoulder and saying, look, we know what you are doing. You know that we know what you are doing. You cannot continue to aid and abet transnational terrorism or you'll have a price to pay.

Now, there's been a lot of tough talk since that time. But one of the things I think about, if you draw the line in the sand with Saddam, he knows exactly where you are. And in past years, that hasn't been the case. We just built a bigger sandbox and the line changed. So maybe a firmer hand would help with Speicher. And, no, we won't do it without our allies.

KOPPEL: OK. Well, let me just ask you, in general, with or without Speicher, Secretary Eagleburger, do you believe that the administration is going to do this? Is going to move ahead?

EAGLEBURGER: Is going to move against Iraq? KOPPEL: Yes.

EAGLEBURGER: At some point, yes. Not necessarily tomorrow morning. But I don't see it. And this, maybe to a degree, disagree with the Senator. I don't think Saddam is going to understand the line drawn in the sand, given our last eight years of history without our doing something to crack him across the knuckles to begin with. So something is going to happen. When I'm not sure, but we'll take him on at some point.

KOPPEL: Is it necessary to know, we hear all about the importance of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, but we don't hear so much about who is going to replace him? Is it important to know before we go after him who is going to run the country?

EAGLEBURGER: If you're going to wait for that to answer before you go after him, you're never going to go after him. That is not, on the other hand, an illegitimate question. And it is one of things that kept the former President Bush, and some of us who were working for him and with him, from jumping to try to get Saddam. At the time it was that you couldn't predict what was going to follow him. And that would be the same case this time around. Although, I gather the administration feels it has closer relationships today with some of the dissidents than we ever had back in the first war.

ROBERTS: I am meeting with some of the dissidents, as of next week. And we meet with them often, and I think you want stability in that area. That is what you are really striving for. I think the timing of this is a little questionable in terms of rattling cages, because of the blow up in the Mideast, that we are not going to do anything without consulting our allies. And we are not going to do anything without really putting a lot of thought in, what happens after Saddam Hussein.

KOPPEL: Very quickly, 10 seconds each. Do you think we should be using the same justification that we are using to go after Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, to go after North Korea and Iran?

ROBERTS: Yes. That is a 10 second answer.

(LAUGHTER)

EAGLEBURGER: It poses a threat to the United States of America in the post 9/11 world, without any question.

KOPPEL: Senator Pat Roberts I want to thank you for joining us this evening. And also Secretary Eagleburger, as always, a pleasure.

Remember, we want to hear from you. Go to Wolf's Web page at cnn.com/wolf and click on the designation for comments to Wolf and his producers.

A check of the top stories is ahead. Grenades are thrown at an American embassy, the day after the vice president visits that country.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Welcome back. Explosions near a U.S. embassy top our "News Alert" tonight. No one was hurt today after two grenades exploded near the U.S. embassy in Yemen. Yemeni police took a man into custody after the incident. The States Department spokesman says concussion grenades were thrown at a perimeter wall of the embassy compound. Vice President Dick Cheney was in Yemen yesterday.

Lawyers for John Walker Lindh say he didn't want to fight along the Taliban. Alongside them or against al Qaeda forces after the September 11 attacks on the U.S., but didn't leave because of a fear of death. They say there is proof in this in government interviews of the Taliban American after his capture. He faces charges of conspiracy to kill Americans.

A U.S. envoy says he thinks Israelis and Palestinians are committed to trying to end the violence. Anthony Zinni met with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat today, and Arafat promised to do all he could to achieve a cease-fire. Earlier in the day the retired Marine general met with Israel's defense and foreign ministers.

Well, that's all the time we have tonight. Please join Wolf on Sunday at noon for "LATE EDITION," as he's joined by Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator and Dore Gold, special adviser to Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon.

And tune in on Monday at both 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. Eastern for WOLF BLITZER REPORTS. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Andrea Koppel in Washington. "CROSSFIRE" begins right now.

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