Posted on 06/20/2006 5:40:45 PM PDT by kellynla
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The U.S. military recovered the bodies Tuesday of two missing soldiers from an area it said was rigged with explosives. An Iraqi official said the Americans were tortured and killed in a "barbaric" way.
An insurgent group claimed the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq executed the men personally, but it offered no evidence. The U.S. military did not confirm whether the soldiers died from wounds suffered in an attack Friday or were kidnapped and later killed.
The discovery of the bodies dealt a new setback to U.S. efforts to seize the momentum against al-Qaida in Iraq after killing its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a June 7 airstrike. Violence was unabated Tuesday, with at least 18 people killed in attacks nationwide, including a suicide bombing of a home for the elderly in the southern city of Basra.
Coalition forces spotted the American soldiers' bodies late Monday, three days after the men disappeared following an attack on their checkpoint south of the capital, the military said. But troops delayed retrieving the remains until an explosives team cleared the area after an Iraqi civilian warned them to be alert for explosive devices.
"Coalition forces had to carefully maneuver their way through numerous improvised explosive devices leading up to and around the site," the military said in a statement. "Insurgents attempting to inflict additional casualties had placed IEDs around the bodies."
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the bodies were found together in the vicinity of an electrical plant, which would be just a few miles from where the initial attack took place near the town of Youssifiyah in the volatile Sunni Triangle south of Baghdad.
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.washingtontimes.com ...
The military should have the technical capability now to provide individual gps trackers for the soldiers so that potential capture/hostage incidents such as this are even rarer...
Translation: The discovery of the bodies gives new momentum to the media's efforts to set back the U.S. in its war against al-Qaida in Iraq.
Excuse me, but HELL NO! They'll just keep harping about how it's our fault these scum are like they are and we have no business over there. I ususally don't watch that windbag O'Reilly, but tonight Col. Hunt and General MacEnery (sp) said it's time for the handcuffs to come off. To hell with what the world thinks.........just let those soldiers do they're jobs the way they were trained and THEN get out. This may just be the turning point for that to happen. The new Iraqi government needs to step up to the plate on this one also. What a tragedy! God's blessings on them and their families.
Dear People who want to close Gitmo,
Just remember, these are the sort of people you want to set free.
I'm all for it... If you want them released, they get to stay with you, in your home.
Still want them released?
Mark
On O'Reiley he said they were brutalized and he would not give a full discription but said their eyes had been poked out and many other areas were hacked up. That made me think about some pictures that were on the Web that showed how muslims when they killed a man they wanted to humiliate they would cut off their genitles before they dies and stuff them in their throat so they would sufficate. I hope the guys were killed quickly and the brutilization came after death.
Maybe but they did tortue Amercian captives. They even grilled their livers and ate them.
Yes, the Church did it for a brief period and it was abandoned long ago. Islam is driven by barbarism and cruelty and it is their basic tenet.
he'll only blame Bush
If circumstances were different and our country were occupied with a foreign military force I could see myself doing some very ugly things to captured enemy combatants.
People will not get it here until they're gutted here. I'm with you, though.
Having met men who lost lungs and fingers at Ramagen and Chosun, you wonder how the younger men of today have become such pansies.
It has always been my contention that the President's poll numbers didn't fall BECAUSE of the war, but because of the "politically correct" way we were trying to fight it!!!
The battle lines are still being drawn in this war.
The Democratic Party and it's propaganda machine the MSM are in favor of this nation continuing only as an aberration of what it has stood for, which includes values with nothing more as a foundation than power mongering or "it feels good"--and it's the 'in' thing to do.
Thus far their political correctness and hatred for a free United States has made them appeasers of the Islamofascists. As the determination and hatred of Islam to serve their dark master becomes undeniable to more and more people the politically correct whines of CAIR are going to ring hollow to more people, as will the Left's greater sensitivity for them than for patriotic Americans.
We can only hope there are enough who "get it" to wage the fight against the combined evil force of Islamofascism and liberalfascism.
I agree, its time for action. But so far, not even a single word that I can find.
Maybe the Presidential philosophy is that if we act like nothing happened to those soldiers, the muslim swine will be nicer next time.
Thank you so much for posting that again.
I have read it through and it sends shivers up my spine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.