Forgotten flier: U.S. Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher was shot down during the Persian Gulf War and classified as `killed in action' despite reports that he survived. Did he ultimately die because of Pentagon inaction, or could he still be alive in an Iraqi prison more than a decade later?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 17, 2002 | by Timothy W. Maier

Would Saddam hold a prisoner that long? If history is any indication, the answer is yes. On April 19, 1998, Iraq agreed to release prisoners of the Iran/ Iraq war, which was fought from 1980 to 1988. Nearly 60,000 soldiers were exchanged between the two countries. Iranian pilot Hossein Lashgari, whose plane was shot down Sept. 18, 1980, in southern Iraq at the beginning of the war, had been held for 17 years.

Professor Miller doubts Speicher is alive today. In fact, he and others on the left have charged the administration with using the Speicher case to gain sympathy for an invasion of Iraq. "I fully understand the emotional desire by Speicher's comrades and loved ones to find him if he's alive," Miller says. "But I still don't think there is any reason he survived that encounter. Why is all this coming up 10 years after the fact? You have to be naive to think it is unrelated to the large, ambitious, war drive that the government is now carrying out for a new invasion of Iraq."

Asked if it is a propaganda ploy, Roberts snaps, "That's bullshit. Those charges are really out of line. They better not say that to my face"

Miller responds, "I'm not saying it isn't true. Truth can be used as propaganda."

But if Speicher is alive and could be brought back to walk into Congress, what might Roberts say? "I don't think I could find the words. I don't know. I would be so overcome in tears that I would ask if this old Marine could give him a hug. That's where it would be"

TIMOTHY W. MAIER IS A WRITER FOR Insight.