The military reported a dozen U.S. troop deaths as insurgents attacked the searchers for the three missing soldiers with guns, mortars and bombs.
The search for the missing soldiers involves some 4,000 troops who "will not stop searching until we find our soldiers even if it kills a hundred more of them," said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.
"We're using all available assets to search leaving our soldiers out in the open and al-Qaida in Iraq are using this opportunity to kill even more of our troops," he said.
Meanwhile, al-Quida is preparing the inevitable video and pictures of the missing soldiers, which will further humiliate and expose Cheney and Bush.