“Privates Tucker and Menchaca were not simply ambushed, taken prisoner and killed. “The torture was something unnatural,” said Major General Abdul Azziz Mohammed Jassim of Iraq’s Defense Ministry, hinting at the state of the soldiers’ remains. The corpses were so mutilated that they could be positively identified only through DNA testing. Here, then, is the enemy we face in Iraq: not nationalists or extremists or even fanatics, but something like a band of real-life Hannibal Lecters for whom human slaughter is both business and religious fulfillment.”

“Privates Tucker and Menchaca were not simply ambushed, taken prisoner and killed. “The torture was something unnatural,” said Major General Abdul Azziz Mohammed Jassim of Iraq’s Defense Ministry, hinting at the state of the soldiers’ remains. The corpses were so mutilated that they could be positively identified only through DNA testing. Here, then, is the enemy we face in Iraq: not nationalists or extremists or even fanatics, but something like a band of real-life Hannibal Lecters for whom human slaughter is both business and religious fulfillment.”