WASHINGTON: Lt Michael Speicher, a US Navy pilot whose plane was downed in Iraq in 1991, was dead, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said yesterday. The pilot's fate after the downing of his F18 on January 16 1991 has been the subject of conflicting reports. The Washington Post, quoting US Senate investigation sources, said in June he was still alive. "An American team in [the] mid-'90s came with the help of the Iraqi authorities and with the presence of the Red Cross," Mr Aziz told CNN yesterday. "They checked the site where his plane crashed, and they concluded that...