Washington: The Pentagon revealed today that
partial, incinerated remains of some September 11 victims that
could not be identified were sent to a landfill.
The number of victims involved was unclear according to a
Pentagon report, but it involved some of those killed when a
terrorist-hijacked airplane struck the Pentagon, killing 184,
and another crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, killing 40, in
the September 11, 2001, attacks against the US.
The Pentagon released the report by an independent
committee that was asked to examine practices at the
military's mortuary at Dover, Delaware, the first stopping
point for fallen troops coming home from war overseas.
"We don't think it should have happened," the committee
chairman, retired Gen. John Abizaid, told a Pentagon news
conference.
The panel was formed after an investigation revealed last
November that there was "gross mismanagement" at the Dover
facility and body parts had been lost on two occasions.
After that investigation, news reports said that some
cremated partial remains of at least 274 American war dead
were dumped in a Virginia landfill until a policy change
halted the practice in 2008.
Today's report was explaining the old policy, and said:
"This policy began shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, when several
portions of remains from the Pentagon attack and the ... crash
site could not be tested or identified."
It said the partial remains were cremated, then given to a
biomedical waste disposal contractor who incinerated them and
took them to a landfill. (AP)
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, February 29, 2012, 15:09