Posted on 03/24/2002 11:49:57 AM PST by codebreaker
Regarding your doubt that an actual search of the site ever took place, I'm pasting a quote from Kenneth Bacon, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs..and chief spokesman for the Pentagon: "They have claimed that they don't have records. But some of their statements have been somewhat disingenuous, because they only go back to 1995, when we, as you know, sent a representative in with the International Committee for the Red Cross to look at the crash site. And that was a mission on which we developed some of the information on which we subsequently based the change in status."
This quote came from the DOD News/DefenseLink website: DoD News Briefing
Palm Sunday dinner time....dude...jeesh
I don't know. Maybe Scott Barnes tampered with the DoD website. :)
I did see an explanation that satisfied me about the lack of call for help. Apparently, the radios used on that mission were new Motorola radios and did not fit into their designated compartment correctly. The pilots were warned of this as they left, with caution that they would lose their radios in a crash. This is likely what happened.
Michael Speicher's wife won a settlement from Motorola over this issue.
I'm sorry I can't get these straight from the Air Force Times archives, but I'm not a subscriber. Is there anyone who is a subscriber, that wouldn't mind peeking through the archives? I would feel better seeing them right from the Air Force Times site.
Don Meyers, I do not trust Saddam or the Iraqi government. However, I cant quite grasp WHAT Saddam would gain by this. If he tries to lie and say that the pilot is alive(If he is in fact dead.), that wouldn't exactly engender a positive US response. More likely, it would fuel the public to demand an invasion of Iraq.
Thats just my opinion though, perhaps Saddam has lost what little sanity that he had.
Yikers! I'm no man! I'm Mrs.OkieDokieSmokie! :)
Yes, it's a huge snafu. From what I understand, there was a flap on the radio that was fixed before the next flights went out. To think that flap might have avoided this entire situation, had they been on the radios with the first set of planes.
I also read something earlier that I can't locate again, about Iraq having held an Iranian solider for 17 years before it was discovered that they had him. Does anyone else know anything about this? I certainly wouldn't be surprised to find out it's true, but I would really like to check some credible sources.
Unless I'm missing something too, you're 100% correct.
An excellent 6 part series can be linked from that site also.
Most likely not. You will see many stories like this from the US government in order to get the great unwashed's minds right for an attack on Iraq. Same thing is going on with the "weapons of mass destruction" tales.
Barnes was not (do I need to repeat that) the initiator of renewed interest in this case...if you will read one of more than a dozen independent studies (and review congressional testimony...and a couple of court cases) you will learn this!
Personally, you bringing him (Barnes) up was the first I had heard of that individual...take a deep cleansing breathe now ...
You can lead someone to water, you just can't make them drink.
None...repeat, none of the pilots (who on that very dark early morning at 28k feet plus were in Scott's vicinity (combat cruise maneuv.) or aircrew (Arioch7 was one of them) including Dizzie...thought Scott had perished....they were sure his jet had been destroyed, but they assumed he was evading.
This is all verifiable by the public record link I sent you several days ago that you apparently did not read! Bad Marine....but so since you comment with such certainty check these sources out:
A report from Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC) weapons Division, China Lake, to Casualty Identification Laboratory Hawaii (CILHI) and DPMO dated 26 February 1996, entitled 'Investigation of Aviation Life Support System Equipment Recovered near F/A-18 BUNO 163470, Crash Site in the western Region of Iraq.' A memo from COMNAVSAFECEN to CILHI and DPMO dated 15 February 96, entitled 'DPMO/CILHI Aircraft Mishap Investigation F/A-18C BUNO 163470.1 Memo from Joint ICRC-Iraqi recovery-team anthropologist to Commander, CILHI, dated 19 March 1996, entitled 'Search and Recovery Report, 41/CIL/96, An F/A-18 Aircraft Crash Site in the Vicinity of Tulul ad al-Dulaym, Wadi Thumayl, Republic of Iraq, 10-15 December 1995."
....Analysis of the wreckage by US Navy experts concluded that LCDR Speicher initiated the ejection sequence, jettisoned the canopy, and likely ejected from the stricken aircraft prior to the crash. The canopy was located near the crash site; the ejection seat could not be found. Investigators were able to examine other parts of the aircraft including large portions of the wings and the fuselage behind the cockpit, the canopy frame, the engines, and wing pylons. In addition, the team recovered a data storage unit and fragments of life support equipment, as well as a flight suit handed over by the Iraqis. (see below) US Navy analysis of the F/A-18 wreckage resulting from the 1995 crash-site excavation showed the forward part of LCDR Speicher's aircraft suffered a catastrophic event in the early morning hours of 17 January 1991. At the time of the first impact LCDR Speicher's F/A-18 was at 28,000 feet and traveling at .92 Mach (540 kts). The Hornet suffered a power loss, prior to the canopy being jettisoned. Evidence indicates the impact threw the aircraft laterally off its flight path at least 50 to 60 degrees, subjecting the aircraft to a minimum 6-G load . (3) US Navy investigators concluded that the pilot was not incapacitated by the initial incident. Flight surgeons and aircraft life support systems experts believe LCDR Speicher would have had at least 85 to 90 percent chance of surviving (with second-degree burns to exposed skin) the resultant flash heat and fire and aerodynamic forces of the initial impact that brought down his aircraft. According to several Gulf war veterans and US military aircrew, LCDR Speicher was probably well protected from the flash fire by his flight gear. During the December 1995 survey, the Iraqis directed ICRC team members to the flight suit which was purportedly "found" by a Bedouin boy, but the official Casualty Identification Laboratory Hawaii (CILHI) examination of the suit concluded it showed minimal weathering and adherent soil. We believe the Iraqis planted the flight suit. Near the site where the Iraqis claimed the uniform was "discovered," a few samples of other pilot-related materials were found. Some or all of these items may not have originated in the area in which they were recovered, according to the investigation's results. (4) US Navy experts assessed that the flight suit was the right type and the same size as the suit worn by LCDR Speicher. They also determined that the location and shape of the velcro used to affix patches was correct for LCDR Speicher and his unit. The condition of the returned flight suit also indicates that the aviator was not in the aircraft at ground impact. Specialists determined that damage to the recovered flight suit indicates exposure to a few seconds of heat. Also, the flight suit showed only a trace of possible blood. We can only speculate as.to why the Iraqis chose to return the flight suit. They may have calculated that they had to produce some evidence related to the pilot in order to appear cooperative and put an end to further inquiries. They could have altered the evidence to mislead investigators..... We do not know if LCDR Speicher survived the ejection sequence or subsequent landing, but the lack of crash-site evidence of LCDR Speicher's death, US Navy statistical data associated with F/A 18 incidents, and the condition of the returned flight suit suggest that he probably survived the crash of his F/A-18..... Six fragments of an anti-G garment of the type used by LCDR Speicher were recovered, as were portions of an ejection seat upper leg garter, a signal flare, fragments of a life raft and a portion of a parachute protective cover (all consistent with the equipment types issued to F/A-18 pilots). None of these items were apparently exposed to heat....The way Baghdad has handled the case-falsely suggesting that remains returned in 1991 were those of LCDR Speicher, tampering with the F/A-18 wreckage before the 1995 crash site excavation, planting the flight suit for crash investigators to find, and declining to account accurately for LCDR Speicher¡raises troubling questions about his fate The regime made it a high priority to capture enemy personnel or recover remains inside Iraqi-controlled territory, and Baghdad would have thoroughly investigated the matter until the pilot was captured or the remains recovered. Baghdad's efforts to recover Coalition airmen downed over Iraqi-controlled territory were highly successful. We judge that Baghdad was aware of January 1991 western press reports that a US aircraft was shot down over Iraq on the first night of the war and that the pilot was believed to be the first US casualty of Desert Storm. The press reports would have caused Iraqi intelligence to investigate and the information very likely helped Baghdad focus its search for the wreckage nd the pilot.....We assess LCDR Speicher was either captured alive or his remains were recovered and brought to Baghdad.
...oh and Elvis was seen near the crash site...just kidding Poohbah!
After dinner and listening to Nikki (very impressive girl) ran out to NAS Pensacola to meet (just flew in for a gas and go rtb houston) an outstanding Marine Officer who will be sitting right seat on an space shuttle launch this October. So proud of him...
Anyway got back to this and finished it up.
The part in bold is where the stink comes from. That is precisely what Saddam wants out of this- the other stuff is just what is required to attain the goal of media access and maipulation. The American media is the only effective weapon Iraq has. Saddam intends to use it much as he was trying to use it in the Gulf War, and as he very successfully was using it after the gulf war to try to erode the west's will to maintain sanctions. Saddam's intent is to invite the press in and in them to plant some seed, some scrap of information most likely not even related to Speicher...a seed which will sprout and take root on its own among the usual conspiracy buffs. Typically, with such marxist-inspired dictators, they follow the common patterns of instilling distrust in the opposing nation where it does not already exist, and to aggravate the distrust where it is already present. Saddam's intent will be to divide and conquer his enemies by making them more suspicious of their own than they are of him. He needs the media and some willing and even unknowing accomplices in America to pull it off, but if the North Vietnamese could win through propaganda, Saddam thinks he can do so too.
If he can take the media on a show-tour then he has a chance.
There is something ironic about how dictators who despise and supress free speech in their own countries... depend so much on the free speech we enjoy in ours.
All of these 2-bit dictators dream of handing the US a Vietnam. All of them know what many Americans do not even understand- that Vietnam was not a military defeat but it was most certainly a political one. It was an American defeat because the war was won in Washington, through the skillful use of the press and the impressions the press was able to project to weak, populist politicians about the stability of their base.
Saddam's survival depends upon his witting and unwitting supporters in America and to a lesser degree in Europe. How much material his ministry of information manages to plant and how well it works to distribute suspicion through normal American media circles and particularly through general sources such as the net, will all affect the most important factor in his survival: the American will to fight. Thus he must gain access to the press BEFORE any open conflict begins, in order to set up a flow of disinformation in time to do him some good. He needs to push us into a situation where we look like the bad and untrustworthy guy, which will of course elevate Saddam to the coveted position of moral equivalence, or if he was really lucky, even propel him to a position of apparent superiority as an' oppressed victim of US imperialism.'
As we know from Saddam's more recent success with winning the propaganda war over sanctions, Saddam is much more skilled at this sort of propaganda than the jokers called 'al Qeada.' Bin Laden didn't have any propaganda sense at all when it came to manipulating American opinion- probably because bin Laden wasn't interested in converting Americans or swaying our opinions so much as he was just interested in killing Americans and getting us to turn tail, to be killed later at his leisure. Bin Laden was purely an emotion-driven follower of another Islamic religious leader, quite unlike Hussein, who is a cunning SOB and who is anything but a follower. Saddam doesn't have any particular desire to exterminate Americans or to convert everyone to Islam. Saddam just wants to rule a Greater Iraq. Heck, right now he would be happy to settle for just staying on as ruler of the lesser Iraq, and so he needs allies and he needs the most powerful ally of all- the US media.
If the cockpit and instrument bays were stripped, just HOW did they figure out Speicher successfully ejected?
Also, if the 1991 reports and reality are that far out of line, I think we need to do a JAGMAN investigation of just HOW those initial reports were prepared.
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