Bodies of Soldiers Found; Iraq Debate Raging on Senate
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well what started as a rescue mission driven by hope has ended in a recovery operation burdened by grief. Two American soldiers missing in Iraq since Friday are dead. Their bodies found mutilated and rigged with explosives. Our Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon. Pretty heart-wrenching details, Barbara.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, the news just really gets more difficult as we learn more details about this incident. U.S. forces found the bodies of these two young American soldiers, Private First Class Kristian Menchaca and Private First Class Thomas Tucker late yesterday after receiving a tip from an Iraqi civilian in the Yusufiyah area south of Baghdad where the original firefight took place last Friday night. And by all accounts, these two young soldiers taken, missing but taken away, it is believed, by Iraqi insurgents. They went to the site where they located the bodies, Kyra, and sources confirming to CNN the bodies they found had been severely desecrated, had suffered severe trauma. The families were told these details and that they were so desecrated, Kyra, that visual ID could not be made on the bodies with any precision. And so DNA testing will be done. The bodies were found rigged with explosives, with IEDs, and also the road leading to the area, the path into where they found the bodies, that was also rigged with explosives, with IEDs. The insurgents, apparently, determined to wreak harm on anybody that was coming into the area to recover the bodies. Major General Bill Caldwell spoke about this earlier today from Baghdad.</s>MAJ. GEN. BILL CALDWELL, U.S. ARMY: We spotted what we believed to be them late last night as it was dark. And not knowing for sure, we went ahead and established a cordon around the area to protect it so it would be undisturbed to daylight this morning, and then brought the necessary assets and like explosives (ph) and some others because there were some IEDs in that location, and they did have to dismantle some stuff to get it them.</s>STARR: Kyra, the families are being informed -- excuse me -- with all of the details about the condition of the bodies when they were found. If they are asking their military grief counselor any specific questions, we are told, then, those questions will be answered. But there's a lot of concern about protecting the family's privacy in this very difficult situation. And we are also told that the remains of both young soldiers will be flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for further forensics, so they can give the families as much precise information as possible -- Kyra?</s>PHILLIPS: All right. Barbara Starr from the Pentagon. Thanks a lot. Well, major debate on the Iraq war is raging on Capitol Hill right now, this time in the Senate. CNN's Dana Bash joins me with that -- Dana?</s>DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra. Well, last week, you remember in the House, Republicans were driving the debate. This week in the Senate, it's actually the Democrats who are pushing the debate, and that's because they have essentially broadly made a calculation that they believe that the public frustration over the war has grown quite a bit and that this is an important time, four and a half months before an election year, to come up with some kind of alternative. But the big question, Kyra, when you're talking about the Democrats is, what kind of alternative are they coming up with? They're actually meeting behind closed doors in their weekly lunch as we speak. On the one hand, you have senators like John Kerry, like Russ Feingold, like Barbara Boxer. They're going to offer an amendment that says that they believe that U.S. troops should be entirely pulled out of Iraq by this time next year, July 1st 2007. And today, the number two Democrat in the Senate seemed to endorse that approach.</s>SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: This week, the Senate will have a chance. A chance to say to the Iraqi people that as of the middle of next year, this becomes your responsibility. We will give you 12 months and more American lives and more American dollars and then, Iraq, you have to stand up and defend yourself.</s>BASH: Now, a lot of Democrats in the Senate, though, they believe that that idea of setting a date certain for troops to come out is not only bad policy, but also bad politics in an election year. And that's why many of them have crafted an alternative, an amendment that they are also going to put forward this week, perhaps as early as today, to say that there should be a broad phased redeployment, they call it, beginning this year. With no exit date in particular, unlike the approach endorsed by Senator Kerry. But Republicans, they are already saying that anything that gives what they call an arbitrary date for withdrawal is dangerous. And the Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on the Senate floor today went so far as calling it surrendering, which he said is not a solution.</s>SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: We cannot retreat, we cannot surrender, we cannot go wobbly. The price is far too high. The strength we show now is the security we earn for the future. As the president has explained, America's troops will stand down as the Iraqi troops stand up. They're gaining strength every day. By keeping a steady eye on the ultimate goal, by having flexibility and patience, I'm confident they'll succeed.</s>BASH: Now the politics of this -- is really all about the politics of this, Kyra. And Republicans, at this point, believe that the Democrats in the Senate are essentially playing into their hands, that they are playing into what has been the Republican campaign strategy for the past two elections, which is to call Democrats weak on national security. But on the other hand, Kyra, Democrats simply believe that they know Republicans are going to run against them on that particular issue, and they say that the public especially wants some kind of solution that is not what the president is offering, which they say is no end in sight. And they want the status quo to be changed. And that's why the Democrats say it's time to step up and, what they say, show some accountability -- Kyra?</s>PHILLIPS: Dana Bash, live on the Hill. Thanks, Dana. Another top terrorist is dead. This one described as a very senior member of Al Qaeda with excellent credentials. He was known as Sheikh Mansur. He was killed on Friday when coalition forces blasted his vehicle. The U.S. said that Mansur to the also dead Abu Musab al- Zarqawi and to the man who they think replaced Zarqawi as leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. They lost their homes to war or some other disaster, and all too often, their more fortunate neighbors don't know that they exist. Well, today was World Refugee Day, and all day long, CNN is shining a light on the millions of people who suffer and those who are trying to help. The U.N. (ph) considers five nationalities of particular concern. Afghans, almost 3 million, Columbians, 2 1/2 million, Iraqis almost 2 million, Sudanese 1.6 million, and Somalis 839,000. Almost half of the world's refugees are children. Bombings, shootings, kidnappings, fear of hatred and despair. Think of Iraq, and those are the woes that you might think of. You may not realize Iraq also has a refugee crisis, one of the worst in the world in the U.N.'s view. CNN's Arwa Damon reports.</s>ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At 85 years old, Shi'a Mohsin Madhlom never thought that he would leave his home in the Sunni area of Abu Ghraib. He lived through tough times, he says, but nothing like this. He fled with his five children and 13 grandchildren, fearing that they would be the next victims of sectarian violence. "We received a death threat, a letter that said we all had to leave that night," he says. I saw all my neighbors leaving in front of my eyes." They moved in with family members living in a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad. Refugees in their own country after the February bombing of a Shia shrine led to a spike in sectarian violence. According to the Iraqi government, there are more than 100,000 just like Mohsin. Nearly double the number of just two months ago, as much of the country splits into Sunni and Shia strongholds.</s>DR. SAID HAKKI, IRAQI PHYSICIAN: The numbers start becoming some way alarming sometimes at the 22nd of March, when we made our first assessment. And then we're doing it every like three or four days. We're beginning to see a serious trend.</s>DAMON: Some Iraqis don't even have families that can shelter them and end up in tent villages. The lucky ones manage to escape abroad. According to a recent survey, some 600,000 Iraqis are now living in Jordan and Syria, and they include many professionals. And that's what makes Iraq so unusual among countries that have a refugee crisis. It's best and brightest, 40 percent of its middle class according to some estimates, have left the country in the last three years, unable to stomach the violence any longer. Arwa Damon, CNN, Baghdad.</s>PHILLIPS: They were children when they were forced to flee a brutal civil war. Twenty years later, those who managed to survive have incredible stories. You'll meet one the lost boys of Sudan when LIVE FROM continues.