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H. Res 111

 

To Establish, in the House of Representatives, a Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs

   
  Current Co-Sponsors: 88 as of 15 July 2011           < VIEW LIST >
 

In August of 1991, the United States Senate approved a resolution which created a Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs.  The scope of the committee was to:

 

"investigate the events, policies, and knowledge that guided U.S. Government POW/MIA-related actions over the previous 20 years and to do so in order to advance the following goals:

  • to determine whether there was evidence that American POWs survived Operation Homecoming and, if so, whether there was evidence that some may have been alive in captivity;

  • to ensure the adequacy of government procedures for following up on live-sighting reports and other POW/MIA related information;

  • to de-mystify the POW/MIA accounting process so that the families and the public can better understand the meaning behind the numbers and statistics used in discussions of the issue;

  • to establish an open, comprehensive record, and to provide for the broad declassification of POW/MIA materials in order to enable both the Committee and the public to make informed judgments about questions of policy, process, and fact;

  • to lend added weight to Executive branch efforts to obtain cooperation from foreign governments in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in accounting for missing Americans;

  • to review the activities of private organizations who participate in fundraising and educational efforts related to the POW/MIA issue;

  • and to examine, to the extent time and resources permit, unresolved issues pertaining to missing Americans from World War II, Korea, and the Cold War."

The hearings, chaired by Senators John Kerry and Robert Smith, began on November 5th, 1991 and concluded with it's final report on January 13, 1993.  Between these dates, Senator Kerry, his aides and others worked feverishly to derail the hearings, belittle family members and witness, and to forever abandon those who were being held as POWs and those who were still listed as Missing in Action.

 

They debunked credible first-hand eyewitness testimony, live-sighting reports, satellite imagery containing the escape and evade (E and E ) codes of downed (and still missing) pilots and aircrew and a myriad of other evidence that proved that American fighting men were still being held against their will in Southeast Asia!

 

The committee, in it's final report concluded that no Americans survived in captivity, however, they also concluded that a small number of Americans were kept behind after Operation Homecoming in 1972.

 

In effect, the only goals this committee had completed were the exact opposite of the mandate they had laid before the Senate in August, 1991:

  • They almost completely dismissed, out-of-hand, evidence that proved the survival and existence -- and continued internment of hundreds of missing American Service Personnel.

  • Stone-walled and tied the hands of personnel who, at the time, where responsible for the investigation of live sighting reports.  And paved the way for future failings in investigations.

  • Further mystified the accounting process and darkened the smoke screen burning between family members and those charged with investigating the fates of their loved ones.

  • Further stymied the process of declassifying documents relating to the POW and MIA issue by making it so expensive and cumbersome to obtain what documents survived the shredders of John Kerry and his staff!

  • Created further hurdles for those seeking the truth by collaborating with the lying Governments in Southeast Asia to cover up the truth more!

There are so many more examples of how this Senate select committee failed those who are still POW and MIA and their families. 

 

The following is a list, compiled by the National Alliance of Families, of the top seven reasons why we need this new resolution; H Res. 111. 

  • The Gulag Study 5th Edition issued Feb. 11, 2005 - compiled by the Joint Commission Support Directorate (JCSD), the investigative arm of the U.S./Russian Joint Commission on POW/MIAs, concluded;
    "Americans, including American servicemen, were imprisoned in the former Soviet Union...."

  • Failure to Investigate the "185 Report" - In 1993, the Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO) received a report that 185 American POWs had been held in Southeast Asia after 1973, possibly as late as 1976. The report was recognized as possibly credible. During the mid-l990's a Russian geologist was interviewed and reported that he was told in 1976 by Vietnamese counterparts that the Vietnamese Government at that time was holding live American POWs. Neither report has been properly investigated.

  • Failure to Authorize Live Sighting Investigations and the attempt to limit Stony Beach activity. Reports of live POWs in Southeast Asia are not investigated.

  • Failure to Properly Investigate Reports of POWs in North Korea - A Background Paper prepared, in 1996, by I.O. Lee, analyst Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO) stated: "There are too many live sighting
    reports, specifically observations of several Caucasians in a collective farm by Romanians and the North Korean defectors' eyewitness of Americans in DPRK to dismiss that there are no American POW's in North Korea."

  • Failure to Properly Investigate the case of Capt. Michael Scott Speicher - A well place source provided the following information to the National Alliance of Families in the summer of 2003; "The one source that claimed to have been held with Speicher and fed him on a daily basis stated they had been held for 10 years in the underground prison; that individual was released and left Iraq. The individual that reported feeding the pilot was talking to an individual outside Iraq when he made the claim, and the U.S. side never interviewed him.... Don't be misled by those who would pooh pooh the Speicher reporting."

  • Failure to follow-up on the Conclusions and Recommendations of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, January 1993 - " There is evidence, moreover, that indicates the possibility of survival, at least for a small number, after Operation Homecoming...."

“Today, Defense Department files contain evidence that at least 59 Americans were -- or may have been -- taken prisoner and their precise fate is still unclear. This includes the 20-30 not officially acknowledged by Vietnam in 1973.

This represents the minimum number of possible live POWs today…. U.S. field teams in Vietnam since 1989 have uncovered evidence that more Americans were in fact taken captive than officially recorded.” (Memo dated August 17, 1992, “The Universe of Possible POWs: 1973 versus 1992” by Sedgwick D. Tourison, investigator, for the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs 1991 - 93.)

I implore you to visit, write, fax and call your Congressmen to ask them to lend their support to this resolution.  Alive or dead, these men deserve to come home and we owe it to future generations of American service personnel to ensure this abandonment never occurs again!

 


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