trifecta. and the fourth murder in two years. is america behind it? and a terrible video posted. it appears to be american marines urinated on dead bodies. let's go "outfront." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com tonight, breaking news. we have very disturbing video of what appears to be u.s. marines urinating on dead bodies. now, the video is so disturbing, we're not going to air it in full. this is a snapshot as you can see, it shows four men urinating on three dead bodies which are sprawled out in front of them. we have it blurred out, genitalia, as that was too disturbing to show. it's a 40-second video and it surfaced today on youtube and tmz.com. in it, one man says quote, have a great day, buddy. another joke, golden, like a shower. another is heard checking to see whether this was caught on camera. now, it's unclear who shot or posted this video and frankly, it's also unclear who the people pictured in it were or where it was shot. barbara starr is on the story. it was amazing when this happened very late this afternoon. it was disturbing and hard to watch. let me ask you what the reaction is from the pentagon and what you can tell us about its authenticity. >> good evening. a senior pentagon official calls the video disgusting, said it turned his stomach, so now, what is happening is the marine corp. is launching an investigation. they want to nail this down as fast as they can. who are these people in the video? are they in fact marines? where were they serving? what transpired here and can they bring charges against these people. this is desecration of dead bodies in a war zone. are there charges to be brought, legal action to be taken under the military justice system? >> what can you tell us about what clues there are within the video? >> there are plenty of clues and they may be able to give focus on this very quickly. senior marine i spoke to said, just look at that picture. you see those marines carrying sniper rifles. you see them with very specific helmets on that are very particular to marine sniper teams. shorter front, shorter sides, so the marines could hold their sniper rifles up to their faces when they take a shot. marine sniper teams usually travel in a six-man unit in very isolated areas. that may be how this happened. they are very aware of what sniper teams that are out there in the past few months, where they were, mainly in afghanistan of course, and they are going to be talking to them and trying to pin this down as fast as they can. >> thank you very much. of course, sniper teams, some of the most high loi specialized, trained and talented out in the field. fran townsend our contributor here at cnn. good to have both of you with us. what's your reaction when you see this? are you shocked this happens or is this something that as awful as it is, happens. >> i'm shocked it took place. this is outside the bounds of anything that's trained or acceptable and these young men know that and i can't explain their behavior. i need to tell you the marine corp. will jump all over this, investigate and there will be some, there will be some accountability that will come from this. >> fran, you were addvising the bush administration when the abu pictures came out. >> based on what we know at the moment, it looks like an isol e isolatisolat isolated event, but what you have to understand and what gets lost to people is that this is contrary to u.s. policy, it's illegal. it's against the uniform code of military justice and that's why there will be a review. it gets a life of its own and it's used by people like the taliban and al-qaeda to recruit, train, inspire and raise money. as awful as it is, it has consequences that go far beyond just this story. >> general marx, what is your view on what its implications will be on funding and improvement? i mean, it is a horrific travesty. >> it's absolutely horrendous. it's agree jous and nothing within any norm. it has everything to do with recruiting of our enemies. less to do with the the marine corp. or our department of defense and bringing great young men and women on board. i'm not concerned about that. sadly, behavior like this often occurs, this is a digital form of scalping. it should not have occurred and i know that chain of command is going to figure out why. >> do you think people could lose their lives because of this? i know people say that might happen. do you think it can and fran, jump in and let me know whether you think that did happen as a result of abu grab. >> we don't know when this occurred. >> and now, it's being seen. >> it's timed now. it's a media. so, there may be some direct results. i would doubt that. what this has to do is exactly what fran talked about. it's worldwide recruiting. a black eye for the united states and our alliance and our friends in afghanistan. >> and you run the risk that our enemies will use this sort of video for a justification for mistreating u.s. soldiers either captured or killed. it will be used as an excuse. >> how high do you think this sort of thing goes? we were just hearing from barbara starr, these are elite, high lie trained guys. they go in groups of six. how high could this go? could laughing at this, seeing this, knowing about this go? >> it doesn't go beyond this team. i need to tell you. absolutely. everybody in this team's chain of command, they're no longer elite. these guys are outside the norm. that really makes you upset and everybody in this team's chain of command right now are trying to figure out why these guys, guys that we trusted, marines that we put in incredible positions, trained them immensely. we ejected them with our military ethos and they do this? everybody is trying to figure out what broke down. >> how does this happen? this happened and it was shocking and known to be inappropriate then to torture, to do something as awful and horrendous as defecating on a dead body, yet it happens. >> up until the point we saw that video, we have no clue. we have no clue what these young men had gone through up until that moment, but they are trained that once their job is done, they get very agnostic, focused and they do what they have to do to respect and honor those they just killed. they might have slaughtered those guys and that's fine. then move off to their next mission. you don't do what we just saw. >> the point here is given how trained they were and what their mission was, it is possible they went through a horrendous fire fight and saw teammates or others wounded or killed. as general marx says, that doesn't justify, nothing justifies the behavior in that video, but you have to understand that in the heat of the moment, the battle, adrenaline pumping, and you need to understand that so you can prevent it in the future. >> thanks to both of you. we'll continue to keep everyone updated as we find out the province of the video and identities of the men you saw there. newt admits he crossed the line. will the man who called mitt romney a vulture file suit? and the fourth iranian scientist murdered in two years. who's behind it? iran says america. is it true? and disturbing new details in the casey anthony case. we've got new documents today and something shocking in there. allegations that casey's father may have sexually abused his granddaughter, caylee. the other office devices? they don't get me. they're all like, "hey, brother, doesn't it bother you that no one notices you?" and i'm like, "doesn't it bother you you're not reliable?" and they say, "shut up!" and i'm like, "you shut up." in business, it's all about reliability. 'cause these guys aren't just hitting "print." they're hitting "dream." so that's what i do. i print dreams, baby. [whispering] big dreams. ♪ you want to save money on car insurance? no problem. you want to save money on rv insurance? no problem. you want to save money on motorcycle insurance? no problem. you want to find a place to park all these things? fuggedaboud it. this is new york. hey little guy, wake up! aw, come off it mate! geico. saving people money on more than just car insurance. mitt romney is celebrating last night's win in new hampshire, but he's feeling the heat. with the tax on the one thing he's touted. running bain capital. rick perry compared romney to a vulture capitalist. >> they're vultures, they're sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick and then they swoop in. they eat the car kus. they leave with that and they leave the skeleton. >> the front-runner shot back saying it shows just how des prate his rivals are. >> but you saw last night that that approach didn't work well for either rick perry or newt gingrich and so we'll take it to the next level. they'll find new attacks and i think in the final analysis, people want someone who can lead the country back to strength with good jobs and rising incomes and all these attacks i think will fall flat as they did last night. zpl all right. the question is, is an attack on bain capital an attack on free markets and america's entrepreneur cal culture? steve forbes, kevin madden, romney's former adviser. a good pairing tonight. let me start with you, steve. gingrich was asked today by a santorum supporter about the attack on mitt romney and the supporter was saying hey, go after romney for other things, not this. gingrich seemed to agree, said quote obama just makes it impossible to talk rationally because he's so deeply into class warfare. i agree entirely. it seems like gingrich is backing off romney. should rick perry? >> i think it's first of all, i think you have to make a distinction between equity capital and funds in general. they perform a real service. a few of the companies where they took out dividends, huge management fees then the company went broke. they had a good record long-term, but he should answer those questions. that's legitimate. i think what you're going to see unfold in south carolina and florida is we are going to get real issues with mr. romney. one is does he have a good radical tax proposal to put on the table, which rick does and others have. he has not done that yet. he's also got to get around this thing of mandates for health care and if he says something good on the dollar, he'll be stronger. he's got to get real proposals on the table, on taxes, on health care, so that people feel he can lead the party. >> for those who don't know this and a lot of you probably do, but the original authors of the concept of a flat tax. when rick perry goes into great detail about vultures on limbs and swooping in and taking over companies, i know you're laughing here, but does that frustrate you a little bit as a guy who sees this and goes, gosh, i wish my candidate weren't talking like that. >> no, it's colorful rhetoric and makes a point romney has to answer questions about those companies where they took out dividends and management fees. if he doesn't deal with it now, he's going to have to under more r adverse circumstances in the fall. >> which companies? just wondering to ask kevin. >> i don't, but i know there are two or three. >> the journal's story on monday. >> kevin, what's your response to that, that steve forbes saying most of these cases, bain did good things. >> i think in every instance, private equity groups like bain capital, what they've tried to do is make an investment, then profit on that. in order to help a company grow. oftentimes, they take over companies that are underperforming or not up to potential and they try to bring their potential out of them and try to make them perform again. i think that's the genesis of every single investment that you're seeing from bain and other this is that private equity world. i think it's pretty appalling though, the language you hear from rick perry, from newt gingrich. which actually echoes that of the very far left. folks like michael moore and moveon.org, who are trying to always attack free enterprise and attack economic freedoms. we are not surprised that these sort of arguments would come up during this campaign. we expect those on the left and president obama are going to try and make these, offer up these distortions about free enterprise. what we find surprising is that it would come from fellow republicans. >> it is interesting. joe biden was on the same side as rick perry. >> i think "the wall street journal" for example had a very good editorial this morning. defending mitt romney and the concept of equity capital, having equity funds, but they also raised the questions that he must answer questions about the situations where he went in the company that was weak and premature and took out excess fees. better to get that out of the way now than in the fall. no one has argued against the concept of having equity funds with companies that are weak, trying to turn them around. but where you overdid it, took out dividends prematurely, answer the question. very simple. >> the reason that rick perry is floundering in the polls is that he's totally focused on governor romney and criticizing romney and attacking free enterprise. he's not talking about the future, what he would do as president. the reason romney's doing so well, why he's doing very well in these upcoming states is because he's focused on putting the american people back to work and telling the people who you would do for the future. >> kevin, to set the record straight, rick perry has talked about the flat tax, excess regulation. $1.7 trillion a year. and terms of your own candidate, when is he going to put on the table a real radical tax simplification program? he's hinted on it, but hasn't put anything real on the table. he's also told "the wall street journal" in that interview a couple of weeks ago, he's open mind today a value added tax. >> if you look at the last week -- rick per rry has done nothing but talk about what he would do to attack free enterprise -- >> kevin, answer my question. >> if you look at governor romney's side -- >> contrast with rick perry -- >> about what he would do to make taxes lower. to make taxes flatter. how he would reduce and reform the corporate tax rate to american companies are flourish, create jobs across the country. he's talking about economic future of this country and what perry is engaged in is attacking free market capitalism. i think we are in a wonderful position right now to win the party, unite conservatives who are filleting rick perry and newt gingrich -- >> and you're not going to get real unification, whoever the candidate is, unless your guy puts op the table a genuine program. he's hinted on it a couple of days ago, but hasn't put it on the table and he must reputeuate the idea of a v.a.t. and he must deal with the fact of why did he put the mandate in massachusetts on health care. >> he is lagging the race, who knows what will happen. if he does, would you back mitt romney? >> i'll look at the field again and if he's got a good flat tax on the table, i'll be very recepti receptive. >> and kevin, do you think mitt romney will come up with a further tax plan? >> i think a great part of the debate and general election will be more details about what governor romney would do to make taxes flatter, put the economy back on track and we'll be very welcome to have mr. forbes' endorsement. >> and i'll welcome you to rick perry's victory party. >> great to be with you both. thank you. mitt romney has won in iowa, but can he do it in south carolina? we've got an insider, says it's anyone's game and how much is a nickel really worth these days? this number is sure to surprise you. 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