Insurgent Video Claims Captured U.S. Soldiers Are Dead

To Infanti, the battalion commander, it is a hunt fraught with frustration as he sifts through misinformation and dead-end leads. Attempts at paying local residents for information, potentially a simple transaction, have been hindered because many people are wary of being found carrying American dollars. Since Iraqi currency for distribution has not yet arrived at his outpost, he said, soldiers have poured water on U.S. dollars and crunched them up to try to make them appear old and worn. But the larger problem the soldiers face is a sprawling rural landscape and a frightened, distrustful population.

"They all lie. Survival. Whatever they think you want to hear, they'll tell you. Because they don't want you to shoot them," Infanti said.

Over the course of the search, three soldiers from his brigade have been killed, and Infanti must keep the others focused on the task despite their grief.

"You go outside the wire and you start daydreaming, you're going to get killed. I tell 'em if you got to cry, you go in the port-a-potty, or go inside your sleeping bag, but you can't afford to do it outside the wire. Otherwise there will be a lot more memorials to go to," he said.

The soldiers fought to control their emotions Monday afternoon during the service for Pfc. Matthew A. Bean, 22, of Pembroke, Mass., who died May 31 after being shot by a sniper on May 19, the eighth day of the search, Infanti said. The service was held at a nearby base in Mahmudiyah, inside a hangar with swallows darting through the rafters. A procession of speakers remembered the former landscaper and arborist for his many nicknames, including "beaner" and "frijol"; for how he loved to dance and play the guitar; and for his constant good humor amid their grueling work.

"His death will leave those who were close to him with an emptiness that will not ever be filled," the chaplain said at the ceremony.

Meanwhile on Monday, U.S. military officials offered new details about the British financial consultant and four British bodyguards abducted May 29 from a Finance Ministry building in Baghdad. A senior U.S. military official said there was a "potential link" between the captors in this case and the Shiite militia cell that conducted a brazen attack in Karbala in January that killed five American soldiers. In that incident, gunmen wearing U.S. military-style uniforms and driving sport-utility vehicles captured the soldiers inside a government compound.

Last month, the Americans killed the suspected ringleader of that group, Azhar al-Dulaimi, in a shootout in Baghdad. The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the kidnapping of the British "could very well be in retaliation" for the killing of Dulaimi.

Correspondent John Ward Anderson and special correspondent Naseer Nouri in Baghdad contributed to this report.