WASHINGTON -- The remains of the first American lost in the Persian Gulf War have been found in Iraq, the military said Sunday, after struggling for nearly two decades with the question of whether he was dead or alive.
The Pentagon said the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology on Saturday had positively identified the remains of Navy Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher, whose disappearance has bedeviled investigators since his fighter jet was shot down over the Iraq desert on the first night of the 1991 war.
Associated Press
Navy Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher, in an image provided by the Navy.
.The top Navy officer said the discovery illustrates the military's commitment to bring its troops home.
"Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be," said Adm. Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations.
The Pentagon initially declared Capt. Speicher killed, but uncertainty -- and the lack of remains -- led officials over the years to change his status a number of times to "missing in action" and later "missing-captured." The family Capt. Speicher left behind, from outside Jacksonville, Fla. -- continued to press for the military to do more to resolve the case.
Family spokeswoman Cindy Laquidara said relatives learned on Saturday that Capt. Speicher's remains had been found.
"The family's proud of the way the Defense Department continued on with our request" to not abandon the search, she said. "We will be bringing him home."
Ms. Laquidara said the family would have another statement after being briefed by the defense officials, but she didn't know when that would be.
More than a decade after he was shot down in a combat mission, the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq finally gave investigators the chance to search inside Iraq. That led to a number of new leads, including the discovery of what some believed were the initials "MSS" scratched into the wall of an Iraqi prison.
The search also led investigators to excavate a potential grave site in Baghdad in 2005, track down Iraqis said to have information about Capt. Speicher and make numerous other inquiries in what officials say was an exhaustive search.
Officials said Sunday that they got new information last month from an Iraqi citizen, prompting Marines stationed in the western province of Anbar to visit a location in the desert that was believed to be the crash site of Capt. Speicher's FA-18 Hornet.
The Iraqi said he knew of two other Iraqis who recalled an American jet crashing and the remains of the pilot being buried in the desert, the Pentagon said.
"One of these Iraqi citizens stated that they were present when Captain Speicher was found dead at the crash site by Bedouins and his remains buried," the Defense Department said in a statement.
The military recovered bones and multiple skeletal fragments and Capt. Speicher was positively identified by matching a jawbone and dental records, said Rear Adm. Frank Thorp.
He said the Iraqis told investigators that the Bedouins had buried Capt. Speicher. It was unclear whether the military had information on how soon Capt. Speicher died after the crash.
Some had said they believed Capt. Speicher ejected from the plane and was captured by Iraqi forces, and the initials were seen as a potential clue he might have survived. There also were reports of sightings. Ms. Laquidara was among those who said she believed he survived the crash.
"It's really easy to put out a yellow ribbon but not so easy to allocate resources to find a missing serviceman or woman," she said earlier this year. "If Scott's not alive now, he was for a very long time, and that could happen to somebody else."
While dental records have confirmed the remains to be those of Capt. Speicher, the pathology institute in Rockville, Md., is running DNA tests on the remains recovered and comparing them to DNA reference samples previously provided by family members.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with Captain Speicher's family for the ultimate sacrifice he made for his country," Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in the Pentagon statement. "I am also extremely grateful to all those who have worked so tirelessly over the last 18 years to bring Captain Speicher home."
Capt. Speicher was shot down over west-central Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991.
Hours after his plane went down, the Pentagon publicly declared him killed -- then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney went on television and announced the U.S. had suffered its first casualty of the war. But 10 years later, the Navy changed his status to missing in action, citing an absence of evidence that Capt. Speicher had died. In October 2002, the Navy switched his status to "missing/captured," although it has never said what evidence it had that he ever was in captivity.
Another review was done in 2005 with information gleaned after Baghdad fell. The review board recommended then that the Pentagon work with the State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the Iraqi government to "increase the level of attention and effort inside Iraq" to resolve the question of Capt. Speicher's fate.
Last year, then Navy Secretary Donald Winter ordered yet another review of the case after receiving a report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which tracks prisoners of war and service members missing in action. Many in the military believed for years that Capt. Speicher had not survived the crash or for long after; intelligence had never found evidence he was alive, and some officials felt last year that all leads had been exhausted and Capt. Speicher would finally be declared killed.
But after the latest review, Mr. Winter said Capt. Speicher would remain classified as missing, despite his strong reservations about the pilot's status and cited "compelling" evidence that he was dead. Announcing his decision, Winter criticized the board's recommendation to leave Capt. Speicher's status unchanged, saying the review board based its conclusions on the belief that Capt. Speicher was alive after ejecting from his plane. The board "chose to ignore" the lack of any parachute sighting, emergency beacon signal or radio communication, Mr. Winter said.
Capt. Speicher's family -- including two college-age children who were toddlers when Capt. Speicher disappeared -- believed more evidence would surface as Iraq becomes more stable.
"There are people that know," Buddy Harris, a former Navy commander and a close friend of Capt. Speicher's who has since married Capt. Speicher's ex-wife, said at that time. "It's just a matter of getting to them."
Copyright © 2009 Associated Press
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