Soldiers' Disappearance May Bring New Pressures

June 18, 2006 — -- The U.S. military says it is going all-out to learn the fate of two American soldiers missing since a deadly ambush south of Baghdad Friday in an area known as "the triangle of death" -- amid new reasons to believe the men might be in enemy hands.

If they have been taken hostage on the battlefield, that could present policymakers with agonizing decisions.

"Everything we now say or do can affect the lives of these two individuals," said David Gergen of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. "They've become very precious lives."

And it could put troops under an emotional strain.

"If they had been killed it would have been just another incident," said retired Army Maj. Gen. William Nash, an ABC News military consultant. "The capture is different. It does cause a reaction of sorts within the minds of all soldiers and commanders."

Witnesses told the Associated Press that heavily armed gunmen swarmed three Humvees at a checkpoint. Two of the vehicles chased them and that's when the third, lone, Humvee came under attack by another wave of insurgents.

Witnesses said the driver was killed and the other two soldiers were taken captive.

The military is confirming none of the locals' account.

But if the Iraqis' account of abduction is true, Nash said, it fits "a classic guerilla tactic from the days of the Indian wars in the American West to Vietnam -- where there is a diversion, the force splits and then the smaller element of the remaining force is then attacked."

The military will only say the soldiers are listed as "whereabouts unknown" and that they could be hiding, missing, captured or dead.

"We want to keep everything as closely held as possible," Nash said, "in order for the insurgents not to have, or other insurgents not to have the advantage of information about these people."

The general in charge of finding two missing soldiers in Iraq said, "We will never leave a fallen comrade." And coalition leaders in Baghdad put out a statement saying forces are searching relentlessly -- in "coordinated and continuous day and night operations." They said they're blanketing the area, going door-to-door despite "harassing attacks" from insurgents.