Posted on 06/20/2006 6:26:39 AM PDT by areafiftyone
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi military official said Tuesday that the bodies of two missing U.S. soldiers showed signs of torture, and that men appeared to have been killed "in a barbaric way." Also, the umbrella group for Iraqi insurgents claimed responsibility for the soldiers' deaths.
"We give the good news ... to the Islamic nation that we have carried God's verdict by slaughtering the two captured crusaders," said a statement in the name of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, which groups five insurgent organizations including al-Qaida in Iraq.
At a news briefing, U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell declined to identify the two men until their families could be notified.
Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., disappeared after an insurgent attack Friday at a checkpoint by a Euphrates River canal south of Baghdad. Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed.
The checkpoint was in the Sunni Arab region known as the "Triangle of Death" because of frequent ambushes there of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi troops.
The three men were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
"The news is going to be heartbreaking for my family," Menchaca's uncle, Ken MacKenzie, told NBC's "Today" show.
He said the United States should have paid a ransom for the two soldiers from money seized from Saddam Hussein.
"I think the U.S. was too slow to react to this," MacKenzie said. "Because the U.S. did not have a plan in place, my nephew has paid with his life."
The director of the Iraqi defense military's operation room, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, said the two bodies were found on a street near the town Youssifiyah, close to the scene of the attack. The U.S. military could not confirm that account.
Caldwell, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said details of what happened to the two missing soldiers and about the bodies found would be released later Tuesday after the families of the soldiers were informed.
"Until we know the families have been both briefed and have been fully informed ... it would be inappropriate," he said.
A search involving more than 8,000 Iraqi and American troops turned up nothing over the weekend, but troops searching for the soldiers killed three suspected insurgents and detained 34 in fighting that also left seven U.S. servicemen wounded, Caldwell said.
A farmer claiming to have witnessed the attack told The Associated Press on Sunday that insurgents swarmed the checkpoint, killing the driver of a Humvee before taking two of his comrades captive.
Ahmed Khalaf Falah said three Humvees were manning a checkpoint when they came under fire from many directions. Two Humvees went after the assailants but the third was ambushed before it could move.
He said seven masked gunmen, one carrying a heavy machine gun, killed the driver of the third vehicle and took the two other U.S. soldiers captive. His account could not be verified independently.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari also said the soldiers appeared to have been taken prisoner by insurgents.
The military said Saturday that soldiers at a nearby checkpoint heard small-arms fire and explosions during the attack at 7:15 p.m. Friday, and a quick-reaction force reached the scene within 15 minutes. The force found one soldier dead but no signs of the other two.
jOHN dEAN? or Howard Dean?...........
"My hatred for these bastards is beyond words."
Who?
a. The terrorists
b. Murtha
c. John Dean
d. Liberals in general who are against our mission
e. All the above
I didn't hear that.
I hope the US Army captures these terrorist vermin soon, and I frankly don't care how badly they abuse them, for how long, and by what excruciating methods they choose to send them to hell to be with allah.
I just hope they suffer beyond anything they could ever imagine.
This is islamofascist for beheading them.
This is like the war in the Pacific that my father used to tell me about. The Japanese were merciless and regularly beheaded those they captured...or tortured them to death within hearing of our lines. The Japanese who did surrender, regularly did so so they could kill more Americans. As a result, the Marines on those islands took few, if any, prisoners.
It was a fight to the death.
We need to realize our soldiers, and we as a people, are in the same kind of war with these animals and ANY who would abett them or provide comfort to them. It is time we began passifying their enclaves and safe havens with extreme prejudice. Their will must absolutely and irrevocably be broken.
For the fallen: Memory eternal! Memory eternal! Memory eternal!
This incident should be remembered and spoken of whenever the advocates of defeat natter on about purported violations of the Geneva Convention by our forces: to gain the benefits of the Convention, beyond being a signatory (al Qaeda isn't) you have to abide by it yourself. Even the Nazis did, al Qaeda doesn't.
This pisses me off. Our guys get tortured while we tip-toe around trying to fight a PC war so as not to "offend" anyone. The "insurgents" need to suffer a mass slaughter in order to send a message.
PC Newspeak for BEHEADED..............
Surprisingly few coalition troops have been captured by the the insurgent terrorists in Iraq. Most troops probably understand getting captured by these barbaric animals is not going to turn out well ... this will certainly reinforce that perception.
BUMP! Totally agree. We need to dispense with the politicized rules of engagement and stop the PC mental rot. Its as if we are trying to fight while undergoing a lobotomy...
To our military: Thank you for the job you are doing. Stand strong. We have your back at home and we are with you until the war is won. It is our responsibility to speak up and hold our officials accountable at the ballot box in November. God bless each of you for your service. Never falter, never fail. On to victory.
At this moment, I am enraged, irrational and bloodthirsty.
I want them all to suffer. Everyone of them. In moments like this I wonder why we just don't napalm the whole region into oblivion. For every one of our soldiers killed, we need to publicly execute about 50 Gitmo prisoner as brutally and as inhumanely as possible - For as long as possible. Make sure it is televised world wide.
We will never win this war with the media and international community siding with the terrorists. If WWII had been fought this way, it would have raged on for years longer than it did...Our guys are being tortured and murdered and half the U.S. population and the media is more concerned about meeting the dietary restrictions of GITMO detainees.
I remember this from about 30 years ago, and the details are sketchy. Maybe someone here will know more about than I:
Sometime in the 1970s, some middle east terror outfit captured a Soviet operative or diplomat and attempted to hold him for ransom and demanded the Soviets pay up.
A few days later, the Soviets sent the terrorists a package with a picture of a known member of the terror outfit, along with a portion of his finger and a note saying that they would send another package every day or so, with additional body parts, unless the Soviet captive was released. A few days later, he was back in Russia.
I'm certain that such fine human rights organization like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even the UN will be along any minute to condemn these atrocities and demand retribution.
In a pigs eye.
It used to be. I offer as evidence the 95% to 99% death rate for Japanese defenders during the WW2. After the Goettge Patrol incident on Guadelcanal, the chances of a Japanese making it to POW status dwindled dramatically.
Maybe this will be the "unofficial" trigger that will change this from a PC "war" to a WAR, one that means Winners and the dead, and no agonizing, no pity, no remorse about the latter. The US military is quite able to play hardball.
Sorry, they are too busy trying to fabricate abuse charges against the guards at GITMO.
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