Austin Tice’s mother holds on to hope

OPINION:

“My son is not dead,” the mother of missing journalist Austin Tice cried out during a recent daylong series of briefings on what has become of him since he was kidnapped near the Syrian capital 13 years ago. “We are working to get him home.”

Those impassioned words, as Debra Tice was talking at the National Press Club about the fate of her son, disclosed more than her confidence in his survival in and out of Syrian prisons. It also reflected her anger over an article published in The New York Times in June reporting the claim of a former Syrian military commander who had served under President Bashar Assad that her son was dead.

The article reported that Gen. Bassam Hassan had told U.S. investigators where he believed Tice was buried. Attributed to “people familiar with the matter,” the story expanded on lower-level sourcing without giving names. “Nearly a dozen people, including former and current U.S. officials, as well as past associates of Mr. Hassan familiar with the events,” The Times reported, had set “the condition of anonymity on details intended to remain private or because they feared retribution.”

One person the paper did not contact was Ms. Tice. Others close to her were not reached either. Visiting Washington from her home in Houston, she lambasted The Times for ignoring her in an article she said was misleading. “They didn’t call me before publishing the story, and they never talked to me later,” she said. The article, published on Father’s Day, June 15, came as a complete shock, as she was convinced her son got out of prison in Syria after Mr. Assad’s demise in December and has been in hiding ever since.

Ms. Tice said the story was based on whatever the FBI cared to divulge. The Times was said to have cultivated sources at the FBI that were less than forthcoming in responding to her years of attempts to glean the latest on her son, a former Marine captain who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq before deciding to use his background in the region to report firsthand on what he observed. His fate has confounded investigators ever since he disappeared at a checkpoint near Damascus, was imprisoned, escaped and was then recaptured.

Ms. Tice was also highly critical of other U.S. government agencies, including the State Department and the CIA, for their secrecy in failing to respond adequately to her questions or tell her what was going on. She and the organizer of the event, retired National Press Club Executive Director Bill McCarren, displayed State Department responses in which multiple pages had been redacted for reasons of diplomacy and security that were far from clear.

American investigators, whether from the CIA, FBI or other agencies, appeared to have met with Gen. Hassan in Beirut, where he has been living ever since Mr. Assad’s ouster. Gen. Hassan, identified as one of Mr. Assad’s top advisers and responsible for chemical attacks on civilians, was seen as a reliable talker, at least to the CIA or FBI. “In meetings with the FBI and CIA,” The Times reported, Gen. Hassan disclosed that Mr. Assad “had ordered the killing of Mr. Tice.”

Ms. Tice assumes the FBI was the main source for The Times article, which said unnamed “American intelligence agencies have long believed that Hassan played a critical role in Tice’s imprisonment.” Lower down, however, the story added a one-sentence qualifier: “A former senior American official familiar with the Tice case said there should be skepticism about what Hassan told investigators because of a possible desire to cast blame on al-Assad.”

A story in The Washington Post last week has deepened doubts. Gen. Hassan purportedly told American investigators that Mr. Assad had ordered him to have Tice killed and that he had given the job to a “subordinate.” Still, the subordinate denied meeting Tice, much less killing him. Sources in the Syrian government that took over from Mr. Assad doubted Gen. Hassan’s claim. Now the Americans are trying to work out a visit to the site where Gen. Hassan said Tice was buried. It’s also possible that Tice was handed over to Hezbollah forces waging a war of terror against Israel from bases in Lebanon.

Ms. Tice refuses to believe Gen. Hassan is telling the truth. She and Mr. McCarren cited numerous instances in which her son had been spotted, alive, during Mr. Assad’s reign. Speaking on video conference at the National Press Club event, the leader of Hostage Aid Worldwide President Nizar Zakka said Mr. Assad would “never, ever” have given “the order to kill an American citizen.”

In December, shortly after the end of the Assad regime, Ms. Tice wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asking him not to order airstrikes near Damascus, where she understood her son might be imprisoned. Mr. Netanyahu wrote back, assuring her that “Israel and its intelligence agencies are fully coordinated with the relevant American authorities” and the Israel Defense Forces were “not active in the area where Austin may be located.”

Ms. Tice and Mr. McCarren said the Americans have been elusive, evasive and generally unhelpful in substantiating reports on Tice’s activities, including unverified sightings. Ms. Tice said documents released by National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard showed the Americans knew “almost every single day” where Tice was being held and, often, what he was doing.

Hopes were high for Tice’s release, or escape, after the downfall of Mr. Assad, who fled to Moscow, but since then, the trail has gone cold. Ms. Tice told me, however, that she feels sure her son is no longer in prison. Reports that Gen. Hassan had him killed have only deepened her conviction that he is alive while journalistic colleagues and investigators from assorted agencies keep up the never-ending search.

• Donald Kirk is a former Far East correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the old Washington Star.