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June 23, 2006, 2:42PM

HOUSTON SOLDIER

Three slain troops were left behind to guard bridge, military says
Inquiry to focus on why they were alone, a possible protocol violation

Associated Press

TIKRIT, IRAQ - Two missing soldiers whose mutilated bodies were found after a massive search had been left alone at a checkpoint near Baghdad while other vehicles in their patrol inspected traffic, a military spokesman said Thursday.

Soon after Pfc. Kristian Menchaca of Houston and another private vanished and another soldier was killed last Friday, one Iraqi told reporters that insurgents had managed to separate a three-Humvee convoy by opening fire and forcing two of the vehicles to give chase.

Other Iraqis told reporters that the vehicle carrying Menchaca and his two companions had fallen behind the convoy and was attacked by insurgents.

Those reports now appear to be wrong, said Lt. Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, a U.S. spokeswoman in Tikrit.

Menchaca and the two other soldiers had been left with one Humvee to guard a hydraulic bridge at a Euphrates River canal about 12 miles south of Baghdad. When the Humvee was attacked by insurgents, others in the unit could not see the vehicle and were checking on their colleagues by radio, Martin-Hing said.

She said a focus of the investigation will be to determine why the three-man team had been left at the canal. Army protocols are designed to prevent such attacks.

"The investigation is going to look at whether proper procedures were followed," Martin-Hing said.

The bodies of Menchaca, 23, and Pfc. Thomas Tucker, 25, of Oregon were found late Monday in Yusufiya, a few miles from the attack scene, during a search by about 8,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops.

The bodies were sent to Dover Air Base in Delaware for DNA testing. The body of the third soldier, Spc. David Babineau, 25, was found Friday at the scene of the attack.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3994673.html