Navy Changes Status of Gulf War Pilot

W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 12 --

In an unusual move, the Navy has changed the status of a pilot shot down in an F/A-18 fighter on the opening night of the 1991 Gulf War from killed in action to missing in action.

State Department Deputy Spokesman Philip Reeker said Thursday the United States suspects the Iraqi government holds additional information on what happened to the pilot and on Wednesday sent demarches, or official requests, asking Iraq to provide that information.

"They're obligated to do this under international law andunder the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, so we're awaitinga response," he said.

Reeker said at a briefing today the department had not heard back from Iraq yet, and that "we'll be waiting fortheir response."

Navy Secretary Richard Danzig notified the family of Lt. Cmdr. Michael Speicher of the redesignation on Wednesday. Speicher, of Jacksonville, Fla., then 33, was shot down over Iraq, north of Baghdad, on Jan. 17, 1991, during an air battle with an Iraqi fighter. He was the first American lost in the war and the last still unaccounted for.

The Pentagon said Thursday it was changing its determination based upon fairly new, highly classified intelligence information that it will not release to the public. Officials say they still suspect Speicher is dead, but in the words of one senior military official, "on the small chance he is alive you don't want to provide information publicly that would then get him killed."

Underscoring the unusualness of the case, the decision to reclassify Speicher was made by President Clinton. Usually the Pentagon would make such moves.

A Navy official tells ABCNEWS.com the MIA determination will entitle Speicher's wife, now remarried, to approximately $300,000 in back pay since 1996 and $7,000 a month for the pilot's pay until he is returned or evidence is obtained that proves his death.

Clinton told reporters today he hoped the redesignation would not raise false hopes.

"We do not have hard evidence that he is alive. We have some evidence that what had been assumed to be the evidence that he was lost in action is not so," Clinton said. "And we're going to do our best to find out if he is alive, and if he is, to get him out. Because as a uniformed service person, he should have been released by now if he is alive."