BAGHDAD, Iraq - The families of the two soldiers whose bodies were found Tuesday in Iraq were upset that first word of the gruesome discovery came from Iraqi authorities.

A senior Iraqi military official, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, said early Tuesday the bodies had been found near a power plant not far from the site where they were attacked.

"With great regret, they were killed in a barbaric way," he said in remarks that were widely reported.

The U.S. military said it could not confirm or deny the report until the families of the missing soldiers were fully briefed.

Hours later, U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad, held a previously scheduled news conference at which he stuck to that line until after it was over.

"There have been press reports that have gone on this afternoon saying that we have, in fact, found the remains of our two missing soldiers," he said.

"We, as an armed force of the United States, have an obligation first and foremost to those families who have either lost or have someone missing. And to them we owe our first responsibility of any reporting," he said.

But after the news conference, an aide told journalists to stay put as Caldwell was on the phone and would have another announcement to make.

He returned and confirmed that the bodies believed to be those of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Oregon, had been found, although he said it would be inappropriate to discuss their condition.

Mario Vasquez, 48, Menchaca's uncle, said he was watching television news reports Tuesday morning, listening to a Pentagon spokeswoman say the two kidnapped soldiers' families would be notified before anyone else that they had been found when he got a call from his niece, Sylvia Grice. She told him that the media was reporting that the bodies had been found.

"It's very upsetting to me that they would give you details of the torture, of the beheading," he said. "Who tells the media when we don't know before they do. Why is the media doing that, saying what they did to them?"

Grice, 37, who was Menchaca's cousin, said the soldier's mother, Maria Vasquez, and older brother, Julio Cesar Vasquez, were very distraught after hearing the news about his death.

Ken MacKenzie told NBC's "Today" show that he first heard the news a few minutes before his interview. "The news will be heartbreaking for my family," he said.

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