US embassy cable - 05KUWAIT3196

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KUWAIT 003196 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR NEA/ARPI; LONDON FOR TSOU; PARIS FOR ZEYA; OSD FOR DPMO 
CRONAUER 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/18/2015 
TAGS: PHUM, PREL, PGOV, KU, IZ, KUWAIT-IRAQ RELATIONS 
SUBJECT: VORONTSOV ON POWS AND KUWAITI ARCHIVES:  "SOMEONE 
MUST KNOW SOMETHING" 
 
REF: KUWAIT 2911 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Matthew H. Tueller for reasons 1.4(b) 
and (d) 
 
1.  (C)  Summary:  During a brief visit to Kuwait, the UN 
Secretary General's High-Level Coordinator Ambassador Yuli 
 
SIPDIS 
Vorontsov briefed the Charge on preparations of the quarterly 
report, due August 25, on the missing and prisoners of war 
from the 1990-91 Gulf War.  He said the current security 
situation affected the search for grave sites and called for 
the interrogation of detained Iraqi officials on grave 
locations.  He was discouraged by the lack of progress in 
locating archival material stolen from Kuwait and maintained 
that "someone must know something."  He asked that Iraqi 
documents reportedly being reviewed in Qatar by coalition 
forces be examined for documents stolen from Kuwait and asked 
that detained officials of the former regime be questioned 
about the missing records.  He also stated his interest in 
traveling to Iraq after the constitution-drafting process has 
finished.  End Summary. 
 
Uncertain Security Should Not Stop the Search for Graves 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
2.  (C)  Ambassador Vorontsov traveled to Kuwait to meet with 
officials from the National Committee for Missing and POW 
Affairs in preparation of the quarterly report, mandated by 
UNSCR 1284 and due August 25, on Kuwaiti and third country 
nationals missing since 1991.  He told the Charge he 
recognized the precarious security situation and appreciated 
the difficulties of working in Iraq, but insisted that the 
search for graves and human remains continue.  He stated his 
strong belief that many Iraqi officials currently detained by 
Iraqi security or coalition forces have information on the 
locations of graves and called for their interrogation  He 
spoke positively of PM Ibrahim Al-Jaafari and said he was 
pleased that the Iraqi Transitional Government (ITG) appealed 
to its citizenry to provide information on grave sites.  He 
was disappointed by the response and opined that many Iraqis 
failed to speak up out of fear that they would be implicated 
in the crimes.  He argued that information from the public 
and focused questioning of detainees would reveal information 
on missing Kuwaitis, third country nationals, and U.S. Navy 
CAPT Michael Scott Speicher.  Responding to questions about 
the status of Speicher, the Charge reiterated the U.S. 
commitment to locating him and informed Vorontsov of U.S.-GOK 
plans to search Kuwait's holdings of unidentified remains for 
Speicher's DNA (reftel). 
 
Stepping-Up the Search for Stolen Documents 
------------------------------------------- 
 
3.  (C)  Vorontsov spoke at length about the ongoing search 
for Kuwaiti archives stolen by Saddam Hussein's regime during 
the Iraqi occupation.  He was concerned that there was no new 
information about the missing archives and called for an 
intensified search of Baghdad.  He told the Charge that 
during his last meeting with Hussein before the start of 
Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Iraqi official admitted the 
Kuwaiti archives were taken and "dispersed to the mother 
ministries."  Vorontsov lamented that if the documents were 
stored at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they were probably 
lost to fire.  If they were in fact parsed out to various 
ministries, however, it might still be possible to locate 
them.  Vorontsov said he heard many documents were taken to 
Qatar by coalition forces for examination and he asked that 
they be reviewed for any trace of Kuwait's national heritage. 
 He also called for the interrogation of detained Iraqi 
officials on the disposition of Kuwaiti records, noting that 
former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Azziz knew the records 
were stolen. 
 
4.  (C)  Despite the slow pace in identifying remains and the 
lack of progress in document retrieval, Vorontsov said he was 
pleased with GOK-ITG cooperation even though he sensed 
Kuwaiti mistrust of its northern neighbor.  Memories of the 
occupation were still fresh and the Kuwaitis were proceeding 
cautiously.  He remarked that PM Al-Jaafari who also lost 
relatives to Saddam Hussein was sympathetic to the Kuwaiti 
position. 
 
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TUELLER