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Missing U.S. Soldiers Found Dead; Millions of Refugees Urged to Cling to Hope

Aired June 20, 2006 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. The search for two American soldiers in Iraq is over. Troops believe they've found the bodies of Thomas Tucker and Kristian Menchaca. New details breaking right now.
And the numbers are staggering. More than eight million refugees worldwide. Why you should care about them, their stories and their future.

LIVE FROM starts right now.

An insurgent attack, exhaustive search, now heartbreak. The U.S. military and the Iraqi government believe two U.S. Soldiers missing in Iraq since Friday are dead.

Our Barbara Starr joins us from the Pentagon with new developments.

What do we know about how the bodies were found and the condition of those bodies, Barbara?

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, this is so difficult to report. The news simply could not be sadder for the two families which now have been informed, we are told, of the details by the United States military. Really very, very grim news.

Sources are confirming that the bodies of Private First Class Kristian Menchaca and Private First Class Thomas Lowell Tucker were recovered several hours ago. Overnight, they got a tip from an Iraqi civilian in the Yusifiya area where the original firefight occurred, and U.S. forces moved in and located the bodies. But that was really just the beginning of what has been transpiring over the last many hours.

U.S. military sources confirming to CNN, now -- and they have told the families -- the bodies were desecrated. They suffered what is being described to us as severe trauma. And the families have been told that visual I.D. of the remains simply could not be made. That is why DNA testing is under way, to make absolute confirmation that it is the remains of these two soldiers.

The news, Kyra, gets even more horrifying. Frankly, there were IEDs set at the location where the bodies were discovered. They were essentially booby trapped to try and inflict harm on those who would try and recover the remains. And sources tell us there were other explosive devices, roadside bombs, IEDs, set along the rod to this site. The insurgents apparently determining the route the recovery force would take into the area and setting booby traps all along that road.

Major General Bill Caldwell spoke about some of this earlier today in Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJ. GEN. BILL CALDWELL, SPOKESMAN, COALITION FORCES IN IRAQ: 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 in daylight this morning and then brought the necessary assets in like explosive ordnance and some others, because there were some IEDs in that location and they had did have to dismantle some stuff to get to them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: And Kyra, what our sources are telling us, this is the not the first time insurgents have used this very horrifying tactic of setting bombs, explosive devices in areas where they believe U.S. military recovery teams would be coming in to try and injure those recovery forces as they go about their work.

Now, the remains of what appears to be both of these very young American soldiers will be sent to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for full forensic examination -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Do we know anything more about these terrorists that are claiming responsibility for this? Because there has been some back and forth information on a web site.

STARR: That's right, Kyra. There is a claim on a Web site that in the past has posted what have proven to be realistic, legitimate, if you will, claims about al Qaeda in Iraq activity. There is a claim on that web site. At this point, the military says they cannot confirm any of those details. They cannot confirm that that claim on that web site as being responsible for all this, that that is a legitimate claim, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Barbara Starr from the Pentagon, we appreciate it.

Well, one's a big city, the other a small town, but with the deaths of two hometown heroes, Houston, Texas, and Madras, Oregon, are sharing the horrors of this war. Private Kristian Menchaca is from Houston, where his family's grief is entangled with a growing anger.

Our Ed Lavandera is there.

Ed, you've had a chance to talk with family members. What's the latest today?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know what they would like to see, and they were very touched over the last couple of days that the U.S. military was making such a strong effort to find the two missing soldiers. And what one uncle told me this morning is that he would like to see that the 8,000 soldiers that were involved in trying to find their loved one, Kristian Menchaca, they would like to see all those soldiers turned back around and focused on finding the person responsible for his death. In his words, the family's words, some of them are very angry by what has happened.

As Barbara was talking about, the family has been told many of the gruesome details about what happened to Kristian Menchaca. And so that feeding into that anger, as well.

But part of today, also, as well as for this family here in Houston. We're in the neighborhood where Christian Menchaca grew up, just north of downtown Houston. They say that he had a tough childhood here, grew up not knowing his father. He was raised by his mother. This is a neighborhood that was often plagued by gangs and drugs. He avoided all that.

A year ago, joined the military, got married just a few weeks before heading out to Iraq. And then a few months after joining the Army, found himself guarding those checkpoints, which is where he was attacked on Friday.

As his uncle told me, he left here a boy; the Army turned him into a man.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIO VASQUEZ, MENCHACA'S UNCLE: I used to see him before. He was a boy. I mean, he just wanted to have fun. And after he came back, at the end of April, the beginning of May, he was a man. He said, "I'm ready, and you know, I'm tough. I can do anything they ask me to do. And that's what I'm there for, to defend this country."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: The family says, when we asked if they really wanted to hear all of the details surrounding the death of Kristian Menchaca, they said they really didn't want to hear it, but they wanted to hear it once from the military and that was it. But that was a little bit of their reasoning why they were pressing military officials this morning for details that they could release to them. So they got the call shortly after the initial reports were sent out of Iraq -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Ed, you spent a lot time with this family. I believe his wife, now a widow, is extremely young, 18. How is she doing? Have you had a chance to talk with her? And also you were telling us yesterday, he really had big plans for when he got out of the military, didn't he?

LAVANDERA: He did. He was -- he had graduated from high school, had joined a trade school. He was thinking about becoming a correctional officer. And that's where he was recruited by the military. And his family says that last year he was the first member of his family to ever join the military ranks. He was excited by that. He said -- we're told that after his military career, that he was developing plans to join the Border Patrol. He's 23 years old. He had married a girl who was 18 years old, and is now living in West Texas, so obviously they had big plans.

We were told by several family members that she is having a hard time with this, to state the obvious, as well as his mother. So those are two members of the family that the extended family here in Houston is the most concerned about.

PHILLIPS: Ed Lavandera, thank you.

Now let's get to Madras, Oregon, where Private Thomas Tucker was raised and where his friends and neighbors are raising American flags and bowing their heads today. Our Brianna Keilar is there -- Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, we're keeping our distance from the Tucker family home at this point. You can see behind me where the flags are flying in front of the house. The Tucker family at this point is not talking to the media.

We did see early this morning during the 5 a.m. hour very early some people came by to visit at the home, and they were out in front of the house, hugging each other, wiping away tears, consoling each other.

And Madras is really a very small place where everyone knows everybody else, and everyone that we spoke with is familiar with the Tucker family and is just stunned by this news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENA WOOD, FORMER TUCKER CLASSMATE: It's a shock when it hits home. It's like your neighbor, your best friend. And it's not something to happen in a small town and it's not something to happen around here at all. But when it does, it's just -- it's heartbreaking. Everybody knows everybody.

RICKEY STRADER, FORMER TUCKER COWORKER: Around here, things are limited. OK? As far as job-wise and things. So I think part of his thinking probably was, you know, hey, go in, get some skills, get some really good skills, and then, you know, if I want to come out, I can come out and do whatever and go back to college and -- you know, do something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: There's been an outpouring, a huge outpouring, of support here in Madras for Tom Tucker and his family. American flags were hoisted in front of their house and also all around town on reader boards at difference business, banks, restaurants, messages, telling people to keep Tom Tucker and the Tucker family in their thoughts and prayers.

And that woman you just heard from, Sena Wood, she graduated class of 1999 from the Madras High School with Tom Tucker. She and her younger sister, Candace (ph), who also went to high school with him, were putting up flags and ribbons and signs yesterday on the main street here in Madras, saying that they want people to remember Tom Tucker and keep the family in their thoughts and prayers -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Now, Tom Tucker had some communication, was it with family, before he had gone missing? What do you know about that?

KEILAR: Well, what we know of his latest communication, "The Oregonian" is reporting that two days before he went missing, he did get in touch, called some friends, let them know that he was going on a mission, a dangerous mission where he would be searching cars, just to let them know that he was going to be out of Internet and cell phone contact -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Brianna Keilar, thank you.

Well, Army Specialist David Babineau dreamed of being a five-star general, but those dreams ended at a military checkpoint in Iraq. Babineau was killed in the insurgent attack in which two of his comrades apparently were kidnapped. His widow is clinging to the memory of a last date with her husband, during his leave on Valentine's Day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONDI BABINEAU, WIDOW: It was just me and him sat there on a picnic basket in the middle of our kitchen, and we just sat there and ate like a five course thing like you would at a restaurant. It just always seems like it was the first date still. We hadn't gotten to that point where it started getting old yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Specialist Babineau will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Well, where would you go, what would you do and what would you be if you didn't have your home? This is World Refugee Day, a special day instituted by the U.N. to spotlight the millions of people who have lost their homes to wars or other calamity. CNN has special coverage all day long with correspondents all over the world.

We begin with my colleague, Soledad O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST, "AMERICAN MORNING" (voice-over): A refugee is defined as someone who flees for safety, and whatever the cause -- war, famine or natural disaster -- the results are still the same.

More than 15 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced. According to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, five nations, Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan, account for nearly half the total population of people uprooted from their homes. Nowhere is the face of the refugee problem more dire than in Darfur in the Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of villagers have abandoned their homes to escape what many humanitarian agencies have described as ethnic cleansing.

U.N. officials say children make up half the world's refuge population. Innocent victims like these youngsters in Niger, forced to leave their homes in search of food, or these refugees in Southeast Asia, forced to seek shelter after the tsunami in 2004.

By focusing on the plight of refugees, the U.N. wants to send a simple message of hope, the hope that millions can be assisted, protected and, most importantly, go home.

Soledad O'Brien, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And for many refugees, the greatest single threat is disease. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a closer look at this global health crisis straight ahead.

Stay with CNN. You're watching the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, they live lives that few of us can even imagine. Refugees, people forced away from their homes, even their countries, by disasters, natural and otherwise. The U.N. has dubbed this World Refugee Day. And all day, CNN is focusing on this global problem and some possible solutions.

The U.N. says that almost 8.5 million refugees are living outside their home countries. The number approaches 21 million when you factor in the so-called internally displaced people out of their homes but inside their countries, as well as groups the U.N. classifies as stateless, returnees and asylum-seekers.

More than half the world's refugees are children. Five nationalities are account for nearly half of those uprooted around the world: Afghans, Colombians, Iraqis, Sudanese and Somalis. Common destinations for refugees include Pakistan Iran and Germany.

It's a bitter consequence of war and famine and natural disaster. Disease, often deadly but often, under ordinary circumstances, treatable. Our senor medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): I've seen it time and time again: refugees, internally displaced people, seeking shelter, safety and security, usually after some unimaginable atrocity. Tens of thousands converging, refugee camps.

They remind us what it means to lose everything: home, livelihood, family. They can't even count on the most basic human needs. Often, there's no food, no water, no shelter, and some say no hope.

Even if you survive the initial calamity, you still have an even greater chance of dying because of deadly disease.

This is a remote region of northern Pakistan. It was just months after last year's earthquake that killed 80,000 people in just minutes and left more than three million people homeless. It's in these cramped, squalid conditions that measles, cholera, pneumonia, meningitis, tuberculosis, polio, normally treatable diseases, spread quickly among the confines of this population. Treating things like pneumonia is made harder still by the fact there's no clean water here.

Refugees will break your heart. The reality is stark. Freezing temperatures, no shoes. Even as I offer up a jacket, I fear he will freeze to death, but he scampers away.

In the war-ravaged African nation of Rwanda, I saw that women and children were the hardest hit. Here, not by natural disaster, but by invisible virus, HIV. Twelve years after the genocide in Rwanda, these women are still dying. Brutally raped and sometimes left for dead, the truth is, they were in fact given a death sentence, AIDS. These same women, sometimes with their infected children, are also refugees, labeled as unwanted and no longer necessary.

In Sri Lanka, an island nation off the coast of India, in the aftermath of the tsunami we found monumental emotional toll, especially in children, like this young boy, Dinet Dijuala (ph), just 8 years old. Dinet (ph) wouldn't talk about what he had seen. He could only bear to draw it. Cars turned upside down in the water. And a figure underneath a bamboo tree, representing his dead father, killed by the waves.

Sometimes the aid comes pouring in as a venting of compassion occurs around the world. But like most things, the aid soon dries up as disasters disappear from the headlines and, along with it, refugee camps become a new way of life.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Anderson Cooper has more stories about the global refugee problem tonight, plus watch actress Angelina Jolie in her first TV interview since the birth of her daughter. She talks with Anderson about her work with refugees. "AC 360", 10 Eastern, 7 Pacific tonight.

A close shave in Myanmar. Daisy was just a young girl when her family fled ethnic and political persecution. Eight hard years later, she's headed to college in the U.S. on a full ride scholarship. Her story still ahead on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: Well, here's some irony for you. One of the nation's biggest credit monitoring services is in the spotlight for a security breach concerning its own employees' information.

Cheryl Casone, live from the New York Stock Exchange with that story.

Hey, Cheryl.

CHERYL CASONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra.

Quite a twist here. Atlanta-based Equifax, they are the ones that give you your credit report, has confirmed that a laptop computer was stolen from one of its employees traveling by train over in the U.K.

The computer contained the names and Social Security numbers of more than half of the company's employees. That's about 2,500 people. It did not, however, have any customer information on the computer. And an Equifax spokesperson stresses the company is taking this very seriously, but he says the data was in a format that does not link Social Security numbers with the names. So it would be almost impossible for a thief to decipher the information and use it.

As a precaution, the company is providing workers with free access to it's own credit monitoring service and is also encouraging them to put a fraud alert on their files -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Well, how's the market looking today?

(STOCK REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Cheryl.

Ten months after Hurricane Katrina, lawlessness still reigns in New Orleans, or does it? A call to the National Guard leaves some people asking why can't the police handle it themselves?

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