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Subscribe to RSSThe disclosure that unidentified remains from the 9/11 attack were buried in a landfill was a small part of a larger report on problems at the military's mortuary at Dover, Del. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.
Updated at 8:38 p.m ET: For the first time, the Defense Department acknowledged Tuesday that some cremated remains of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were dumped in a landfill, conduct the White House called "unacceptable."
The disclosure is just two paragraphs in an 86-page report released Tuesday by an independent task force reviewing operations at the military's mortuary at Dover, Del.
 M. Alex Johnson is a reporter for msnbc.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. |
In a contentious briefing for reporters at the Pentagon, retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the panel, tried to keep the focus on steps the military was taking going forward, saying the 9/11 findings were only a minor part of the task force's work.
Asked repeatedly for more information, he said, "We did not spend a great deal of time and effort and energy" on the matter, adding forcefully: "It's my report, but it's not the focus of the report."
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta formed the task force in December after an investigation by the Air Force, which runs the facility, found that some remains of U.S. military personnel weren't handled "in accordance with procedures."
The Air Force acknowledged that it had disposed of the incinerated remains of at least 274 service members in the landfill before it ended the practice in 2008. At the time, officials said records went back only to 2003.
But the independent panel found that the practice went back at least to 2001, and it discovered that "several portions of remains" recovered from the 9/11 attacks at the Pentagon and at Shanksville, Pa., also ended up in a landfill:
Prior to 2008, portions of remains that could neither be tested nor identified, and portions of remains later identified that the [family or other representative] requested not to be notified of (requesting that they be appropriately disposed of) were cremated under contract at a civilian crematory and returned to [Dover]. This policy began shortly after September 11, 2001, when several portions of remains from the Pentagon attack and the Shanksville, Pennsylvania, crash site could not be tested or identified.
These cremated portions were then placed in sealed containers that were provided to a biomedical waste disposal contractor. Per the biomedical waste contract at that time, the contractor then transported these containers and incinerated them. The assumption on the part of [Dover] was that after final incineration nothing remained. A [Dover] management query found that there was some residual material following incineration and that the contractor was disposing of it in a landfill. The landfill disposition was not disclosed in the contractual disposal agreement.
Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, said they hadn't yet had a chance to review the entire report.
Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo/Defense Department
'It's my report, but it's not the focus of the report,' retired Gen. John Abizaid, chairman of the review panel, insisted.
"This is new information to me," Donley acknowledged when asked about the 9/11 victims by NBC News Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski. Schwartz, asked the same question, replied, "That's what I'm saying."
In a statement Tuesday night, the White House said President Barack Obama had been briefed on the findings and was determined that "these types of incidents never happen again."
Calling the report's details "unacceptable," the White House said, "The United States has a solemn obligation to compassionately and professionally care for fallen service members and their families, and those we tragically lost on 9/11."
Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., who has sought answers to what happened at Dover since last year, said the report bore out what he believed all along.
"I suspected, as Gen. Abizaid's panel has now confirmed, that these practices had been going on for many years. Even remains from the 9/11 terrorist attacks were treated in this way," Holt said in a statement to msnbc.com.
"The Department of Defense needs to engage in some real soul-searching," Holt said. "How is it possible that, for years or even decades, no one at Dover recognized how profoundly inappropriate these practices were?"
'Commanders in name only'
Abizaid told reporters that the Air Force's complex command structure led to the problems by creating "commanders in name only."
But "this was not just an Air Force problem," he said, adding that the entire U.S. military "needs to understand this is a 100 percent no-fail mission."
For one thing, he said, the Dover facility should no longer cremate fallen troops, because "we think it's a bad idea for DoD to be in the cremation business" in the first place.
The Dover facility is the first point of entry for U.S. service members who are killed or die overseas. It first came under investigation in 2010 after employees complained about how some cases were handled.
Investigators said last year that they had found no evidence that anyone intentionally mishandled the remains, but they concluded that the mortuary staff failed to "maintain accountability" with some remains.
"The standard is 100 percent accountability in every instance of this important mission," Schwartz said at the time.
"We can, and will, do better, and as a result of the allegations and investigation, our ability to care for our fallen warriors is now stronger,” he said.
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Mac Turney post is a good one. He says he was in the Military at $900 a year compared to the $50k avg compensation nowdays. Perhaps his $900 adjusted for inflation would be $3k now. What this means is we put 2 men in the field now or 32 men back when for the same money. We know that todays troops are professionals in all ways, better trained, better equip'd . But from a numbers viewpoint we have to believe that in each and every case every group of 2 troops today can accomplish what an entire platoon could accomplish back in his day. I'm not sure I buy it. I believe this push to professionalize the military to the exclusion of legitimate military functions not needing to be performed by professionals is a huge part of the broken budget problem. Furthermore, if a healthier cross section of America's children were in the military, subject ot it's dangers and conditions, the propensity for our leaders to engage in wars for 10 plus year each would dissolve. Even the Brits send their Princes into the military. But in the US, the grunt military jobs are reserved for the 90% class. And when they die or suffer amputations our professional class of Officers and NCO's allow their remains to go into landfills with the dirty diapers. Since the professional class took over the military, we've had the Air force gaves problem, the Arlington Graves Problem, this recent lost remains problems, we closed Walter Reed after the the publication of the filthy conditions our wounded we forced to live in. We filled our hospitals with IED victims by sending them down roads in Humvees. We had the Airforce discover a couple of years ago they didn't have air tanker capability because the US industrial capability has not been in the calculus of the Pentagon when strategizing national defense ! We also had a raghead in $3 flipflops use a $400 rocket to bring down a Chinook killing 32+ of the finest special ops troops in the world who took about 10 years each of highly developed training to learn their skills. The finance officers could probably cost out the shoot down as a $400 million dollar loss to the US. Another reason this business of multi year engagements where we spend to the sky fighting mountain men or jungle fighters who live just fine on goatsmilk while wearing no military gear at all is total dysfunctional and non-porductive bank breaker. And now they are sabre rattling about Iran and Syria. The military inductrial complex owns us. Ike is rolling over.
Ike is spinning like a Titleist off a 64 degree wedge. Remember our glee when Usama was doing the same thing for us, shooting down the Soviet's helos......win or lose, the Military Industrial Intelligence Congressional Complex, still pays itself bonuses, even while failing.
im just glad it wasn't a democrat when 911 happened- oh my agod we would never hear the end of it
Firstly, Bill, it's a DATE 9/11= September 11, not 911. If Gore had been President, as he should have been, the attacks on 9/11 never would have taken place. Richard Clarke would have been elevated to a Cabinet Post as ANTI-TERRORISM CZAR and when Colleen Rowley sent the memo to FBI headquarters warning that the "BOJINKA" plan from 1995 was likely back in place, and Arabs were training to fly commercial airliners, he would have uncovered the plot rather easily. CIA "asset" Susan Lindauer has revealed that it was common knowledge in the intelligence and diplomatic community that an attack by highjacked airplanes on the WTC was imminent in late August or early September of 2001. Condi RICE LIED through her gapped teeth.
do not advertise,parrishhilda
@ Paul, Gore did win the presidency by vote.
Yes. But it was stolen away from him, by the RE-peat-the-LIE-to-the-PUBLIC-ans, so that the NEO-CONS could execute 9/11 and know that there would never be any subpoena empowered investigation of their crime of mass murder, of Americans on American soil. All so they could corner mideast oil, set up the Caspian Sea pipeline, and surround IRAN, and profit from all of that geo-petro-politically. Gore knew he was going to be killed if he pushed too hard to claim his rightfull victory.
The people who died in Pennsylvania are heroes, HEROES, who with no official obligation of any kind to America gave their lives so others could live. Their bodies were treated like THAT? RIOT!!!
Many civilians work at the Pentagon, not all military to blame.
Whether this was accidental or on purpose is not the point! This should never happen. These brave
souls should never be dumped in a landfill. How could this ever happen in our country? Someone should offer not just an appology but remuneration for this mistake in judgement!!!
This is an executive matter and something where responsibility lies at the top levels.
Identification, disposal and treatment of remains in a honorable way are the ultimate responsibility of leadership, this is not something that should just fly under the radar and not have ever been addressed.
This really shows a huge weakness in the GOP's abilities to focus on their sworn duty.
How do they expect people to respect the values and laws of this country if this is the way that they act themselves?
No excuses!!!!
This is just a sensational "non-story". Does anyone here or can anyone even imagine what a body would look like after traveling 400mph into a concrete steel and glass building, being burned at a few thousand degrees, falling another 600 ft, only to be buried under 1000 tons of concrete and steel? What about the body of a person who is hit with a projectile powerful enough to destroy a tank? The air force who is charged with this task uses dna mapping to identify every piece of remains they can but frankly, if a bomb goes off in the middle of 5 or 6 people, there are little pieces of people scattered everywhere. "They said the procedure was limited to fragments or portions of body parts that were unable to be identified at first or were later recovered from the battlefield, and which family members had said could be disposed of by the military." This proceedure is used on "remains" that you and I would not even be able to identify as remains. I guess what I'm saying is, war is an ugly business, don't get mad at the pentagon or the Airforce for following their protocol, get mad at the politicians that sent these boys to die in a useless war to begin with.
The issue is the choice to send the cremated remains to a landfill, with other GARGABE, rather than to keep all the "unidentifiable" human remains separate from the garbage.
If you will review the photographs and videos of the WTC after and on 9/11, you should begin to notice that there doesn't appear to be even so much as one ton of recognizable CONCRETE flooring anywhere in the pile. Where did all the concrete, 100 acres and five inches thick, GO? Not in the hole, not in the pile.
Apparently your a heartless individual who probably drowns unwated babies and puppies. Hopefully no one you know makes the mistake and takes you for a human being and to have feelings and concerns.
Apparently you're an emotionally driven sheeple, who gave up your own humanity to become one of the unthinking flock. Feelings aren't supposed to rule over your cognitive abilities to reason things out. If you don't question what you are told when the story teller refuses to offer any proof or allow any investigation then you are the one who isn't using your human faculties. Apes have feelings, only humans have subpoena empowered investigative bodies. If we don't advocate using them, then we are de-evolving back into something less than humans.
With the "outrage" of all of you talking about "our fallen heros" I would say that there are many more outrageous injustice done to veterans that actually survived these conflicts than the flag draped, honorable way that the fallen are treated. Yes, honor the fallen, but to see the outrage over the fact that a dime sized peace of someones colon that could not be identified was incinerated and those ashes possibly handled inappropriately, as compared to the way we "dispose" of the veterans that do survive, come home, and cannot adjust is ridiculous. We ignore them, drive past them as the beg for food, discount the nightmares they are forced to live with, and are satisfied now to say they have a personality disorder and not even afford them benefits. If you want to be outraged, be outraged about the way the survivors are treated.
Do you want to know what it feels like.....there is a hole in my chest and actual pain in that hole. My child is at that landfill. That is not what I signed for. We had a funeral planned at Arlington National Cemetery. A few weeks before the funeral (it was planned eight weeks ahead), an Air Force Colonel showed up at my door to read me a letter that informed me that my child's remains were 'inadvertently discarded' and there would not be a funeral at Arlington. Where do I take flowers now....to the gates of a landfill? My child wore the U.S. Navy uniform proudly and honorably. My child deserved more than a landfill.
My heart aches for you and your family and all the others.
Ya, dumb arse... Cheney was planning the bombing two years before the Center was even built, and he was the Assistant Director of the Cost of Living Council in DC. God, you people are stooopid.
Camp of Ignorant: The North Tower was open in December of 1970, the South Tower in 1972. That's roughly 30 years before they came down. They were filling them with asbestos, a known environmental hazard and carcinogen, from 1968 forward. The EPA was formed in 1970. He worked with Donald Rumsfeld in the NIXON administration from 1969-1970 in the Office of Economic Development, and as a WHITE HOUSE staff assistant in 1971.
A pretext for a US invasion and occupation of the oil rich middle-East had been in the planning stages since the end of WWII. Installing, and then protecting, Israel was "always" going to be the West's predominant foothold in the region. Protecting the Royal house of SAUD a secondary, and the Shah of IRAN the third. We switched our hopes over to Saddam Hussein, of all people, in IRAQ when Khomeni and the Mullahs put an end to our meddling in Iran.
So maybe I've got the timing wrong. Perhaps Cheney didn't really get going on "the plan" until 1988. Do you happen to know when it was that he first met Dr. Dov Zakheim at SYSTEMS PLANNING CORPORATION?
What is amazing is how little it took to distract people from the truth. I always knew the remains were not treated with any type of respect or dignity. They found all that gold and what they wanted to find, but people, ok average people mean nothing. I was appauled when I read they were finding fingers and other parts on the streets, but no, more important to rebuild and break arms patting your self on the back for nothing. Oh yeah people, when all the truth comes out about that Bush administration we will be so old it won't matter, but lets see if Romney makes a commercial blaming this on Obama as his trying to blame loss of jobs on him. You all better wake up and demand that Bush administration come clean before the next group of victims are just tossed in the trash like reports on priet molesting kids.