Fire Department crews had inspected the building in the months following the attacks, but construction workers clearing gravel off the rooftop found 10 bone fragments there last fall.

The new remains were found in recent weeks by crews doing a more thorough cleaning before construction workers begin dismantling the building in June, said John Gallagher, spokesman for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.

Some victims' family members said forensic experts should search the 41-story building again.

"I'm not trying to malign the construction workers, but this is not what they're trained to do," said Diane Horning, whose son was killed at the trade center and has filed suit to remove trade center debris from a landfill where victims' remains were found.

More than 40 percent of the victims at the trade center have not been identified. The medical examiner's office is storing more than 9,000 unidentified remains and hope that more sophisticated DNA technology can allow for identifications in the future.

Borakove said that two human remains were found Jan. 27 on the 38th floor of the building. She could not say what the remains were or how big they were. Last Friday, workers found two bone fragments on the roof, she said.

"They are definitely human," Borakove said.

The Deutsche Bank building has been vacant since the terrorist attacks, when part of the south tower tore a gash in the building. Deconstruction of the building, which is contaminated with asbestos, lead and trade center dust, began in September.

"Let me connect you with the person who knows about that program," said the helpful voice.

Pause.

Then came an answering machine. "This is Jane Doe (I am not using her real name because I might get her in trouble). Please leave your name and phone number and the nature of your question, and I'll call you back," said the disembodied voice mail message.

I did, adding that I wanted to file a story today. Then I waited. And waited. And waited some more. From midday Friday until 7 p.m. Monday.

Altogether, I called three times, each time being referred either to a different person (who was away from his/her desk), or to another automated voice mailbox, where I left the same message.

The questions I never got to ask anyone at the DOD were:

"I'd like to know whether BISCUIT units are working at Abu Ghraib and Bagram and other US-controlled detention centers as well as at Guantánamo," and "Some folks who are in the medical and other health-provider fields have been critical of the BISCUITS at Guantánamo Bay, saying they have been using doctors and nurses and psychologists to help the interrogators get information out of the detainees, and advising about how best to keep people alive who are on hunger strike there."

Now, if my name happened to be Bob Woodward or Jane Mayer or Sy Hirsch or Walter Pincus or Jim Risen, I suppose I could have called a "high level official close to the Bush administration," who might speak "on condition of anonymity."

But I wanted to discover whether a plain vanilla working-stiff journalist - and taxpayer - could actually get some information on a sensitive subject from a famously secretive government.

I guess I got my answer. The silence was deafening.

Now, just in case you've been living on Pluto for the past year or so, BISCUITS - Behavioral Science Consultation Teams - consist of military psychiatrists, psychologists, behavioral scientists, and other health care professionals. Their role, it has been charged by former Guantánamo interrogators, is to advise the military on ways of increasing psychological duress on detainees, sometimes using their medical records to find ways of exploiting their fears and phobias, to make them more cooperative and willing to provide information.

In one example, published in the New York Times, "interrogators were told that a detainee's medical files showed he had a severe phobia of the dark and suggested ways in which that could be manipulated to induce him to cooperate."

The DOD has said that there is very limited access to prisoners' medical records. But many members of the health care community remain skeptical.

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine said interviews with doctors who helped devise and supervise the interrogation regimen at Guantánamo showed that the BISCUIT program was explicitly designed to increase fear and distress among detainees as a means of obtaining intelligence.

And between July 2003 and March 2004, a doctor was allegedly "pressured by OGA personnel into filling out death certificates on Iraqi detainees" though the doctor was not given the opportunity to examine the bodies. The causes of death given for two detainees were later found to be inaccurate. The term "OGA" (Other Government Agencies) is generally used to refer to the CIA.

After April 2003, when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tightened rules on detainee treatment, one interrogator said detainees' medical records had to be obtained through BISCUIT team doctors, but that the doctors always obliged. The former interrogator said the BISCUIT team doctors usually observed interrogations from behind a one-way mirror, but sometimes were also in the room with the detainee and interrogator.

The BISCUIT teams were also central, the former interrogators told the New York Times, in devising strategies like "Operation Sandman," in which a detainee's sleep patterns were systematically interrupted several times a night.

Then there is the issue of the "autonomy" of a doctor's patients. That refers to a patient's fundamental right to decide which medical interventions he will permit. That well-established canon of medical ethics requires that a detainee who is on a hunger strike has the "autonomy" to remain on a hunger strike if that's what he wants. If one is a health care provider, the patient is a patient whether or not he's a prisoner. Which means that medical personnel are barred from forcing a prisoner to stay alive, or advising others about how to reach that objective.

So, to return to my unanswered questions to the DOD: Have the BISCUITs changed at all as a result of criticism from civilian medical and other health care authorities? And are they being used elsewhere?

As to the "elsewhere" question, what we know is that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at Guantánamo, recommended the use of BSCT teams at Abu Ghraib when he was sent there to "GITMO-ize" it in August and September of 2003. According to the testimony of those who were at Abu Ghraib, psychologists were indeed involved in the interrogations and abuse of detainees.

Gen. Miller recently invoked his right against self-incrimination in a case of two soldiers accused of using dogs to intimidate detainees at Abu Ghraib. This invocation was the first sign by Miller that he might have information that would implicate him in the abuses in Iraq. Numerous reports indicate that Miller instituted the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners at Abu Ghraib after first using the technique at Guantánamo Bay. A military investigation recommended that Gen. Miller, who is soon to retire, be reprimanded, but a higher-ranking officer denied the request.

And a senior human rights attorney told me on condition of anonymity, "I would suspect since the BSCTs continue to be used as part of the intelligence apparatus at Gitmo" and because have been judged favorably by the military establishment "they are likely in place at the very least at strategic interrogation facilities in Iraq and in Afghanistan."

As to changes in the way the BISCUITs operate, the DOD finally issued revised guidelines last June, after various health care professional organizations and prominent medical authorities ignited a firestorm of criticism. Both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association have made clear that it is unethical for members of their profession - whether in the military or not - to participate in interrogations or to provide information to interrogators about ways to "break" a detainee.

Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, acknowledged that the new guidelines came about as the result of a review of procedures begun after allegations of medical personnel assisting in abusing prisoners surfaced. "What got the ball rolling was an awareness from all the information coming out of Abu Ghraib and the various allegations," he said.

Some of the most passionate of these allegations have come from Brigadier General Stephen N. Xenakis, MD, who retired from the US Army in 1998 after serving in many high-level positions, including Commanding General of the Southeast Regional Army Medical Command. He has reportedly played a major role in driving the DOD to re-examine its medical practices.

Last month he said: "Medical officers enjoy special privileges and status and are expected to abide by and stand up for their professional principles at all times and in all situations. This operation - the War on Terror - is no different.... It is important to remember that the burden of leadership is to ensure that high moral and ethical practices are maintained in even the most demanding situations."

But, speaking about prisoner deaths while in US custody, Gen. Xenakis charged, "To date, we have no indication that either the Army Medical Department or the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs has conducted a thorough investigation of the medical care provided to detainees and the circumstances surrounding the known deaths."

The new guidelines, said Dr. Winkenwerder, consolidate "principles and procedures for US military medical personnel when working with detainees under control of US armed forces."

The guidelines specify that military medical personnel must observe medical ethics, make medically appropriate decisions, and report inhumane treatment. Military health care professionals must "be guided by professional judgment and standards similar to those that would be applied to members of the US armed forces, including duty to protect the physical and mental health of the detainee" and "will not participate in any activity that is not consistent with applicable law."

But in a briefing for reporters, Winkenwerder declined to say whether the guidelines would prohibit some of the activities described by former interrogators and others. He said the medical personnel "were not driving the interrogations" but were there as "consultants."

Winkenwerder added that "only a very, very small number of reports of observation of possible abuse" have been recorded. Pentagon officials have previously said that the practices at Guantánamo did not violate ethics guidelines.

The Pentagon invited representatives of a number of health-related professional associations, including the American Medical Association, to pay a one-day visit to Guantánamo Bay. But they were not allowed to interview any detainees.

One of those attending, Prof. Nancy Sherman, who teaches philosophy at Georgetown University and has written extensively about ethics in the military, said that the DOD had worked hard to present a positive, upbeat image of what occurred at Guantánamo. "I think what was being sought was some sort of confirmation that their practices were ethically sound" and that some of the news accounts were wrong, she said.

Professor Sherman added that the distinction between using psychiatrists and psychologists as consultants rather than as providers of medical care was a tenuous one that invited ethical problems.

Winkenwerder said the new procedures separate individuals who are providing care from health professionals who work in other capacities in detention operations. Medical personnel who are in a provider-patient relationship with detainees - those who actually provide treatment - "shall not and will not undertake detainee-related activities for purposes other than to provide health care," he said.

"Such health care personnel shall not actively solicit information from detainees for purposes other than health care purposes," he explained.

The guidelines say medical professionals in other roles in detention operations should not provide actual care for detainees. Such individuals might include behavioral-science specialists, such as FBI profilers; forensic psychiatrists, who are often appointed by a court to evaluate the mental competency or sanity of an individual; prison psychologists, who evaluate the potential danger of somebody to society; or public-health experts, who evaluate potential for disease outbreaks.

Which still leaves us with nagging questions: Aren't forensic psychiatrists physicians? Aren't they, as well as behavioral science specialists and prison psychologists, governed by the ethical rules of their professions?

Medical doctors take an oath to "do no harm." While psychologists and behavioral science specialists may not have to take such an oath, they are nonetheless committed to doing good, not harm.

And what part of "do no harm" don't they understand? It doesn't require an oath to act ethically. And there is nothing ethical about advising interrogators about how to "break" detainees.

William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East and in many other parts of the world for the US State Department and USAID for the past thirty years. He began his work life as a journalist for newspapers and for The Associated Press in Florida. Go to The World According to Bill Fisher for more.

The attack followed separate roadside bombings in the region Tuesday that killed six Afghan soldiers and four private security workers. Suspected Taliban militants with explosives strapped to their bodies also blew themselves up in the southern city of Kandahar, but no other casualties were reported in that blast, a provincial official said.

In Wednesday's incident, the troops called in aircraft to attack the militants and together with the forces inside the base "are believed to have killed at least a dozen enemy insurgents," the statement said. But it added the military was still conducting a full assessment of the battle.

Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Tata said the troops "defeated a significant enemy element."

The wounded soldiers were rushed for treatment to a base in Kandahar. The names of the deceased were withheld pending notification of next of kin.

The military statement did not say whether the attack was believed linked to the drugs trade. Helmand is Afghanistan's main opium poppy growing region and there have been fears of widespread violence since an aggressive poppy eradication campaign started in recent weeks.

Helmand's rugged mountains are also popular hiding places for Taliban rebels, many of whom are believed to slip back and forth across the province's largely unguarded border with Pakistan.

One of Tuesday's roadside bombings struck an army vehicle on a road in Helmand province northwest of Kandahar, killing six Afghan soldiers, said Gen. Rehmatullah Raufi, a top Afghan army official in the province. He blamed the Taliban for the attack, but offered no evidence.

"We know that it is the work of Taliban terrorists, and our forces are trying to trace and capture them," he told The Associated Press.

Hours earlier, a roadside bomb exploded as a Namibian and three Afghans working for Houston-based U.S. Protection and Investigations were driving in a convoy on the main road linking Kandahar city with Herat, the main city in western Afghanistan. The company provides security for a construction company in the area.

Bill Dupre, the firm's deputy managing director in Kabul, said the victims' vehicle caught the "full brunt" of the remote-controlled bomb blast, killing the four instantly. Several other vehicles in the convoy returned to their camp safely, he said.

Nimroz Gov. Ghulam Dusthaqir Azad blamed the Taliban for that assault as well.

The suspected militants blew themselves up after they were confronted by police Tuesday morning on a main street in Kandahar, provincial Gov. Asadullah Khalid said.

Khalid said he thought the two bombers were militants, adding that authorities had received intelligence that suicide attackers were planning to enter the city, a former Taliban stronghold.

Afghanistan, particularly the country's volatile south, has seen a wave of suicide attacks in recent months, an apparent shift in tactics by militant supporters of the hardline militia that was ousted by U.S.-led airstrikes in late 2001.

In another incident, a roadside bomb killed six Afghan soldiers on Tuesday in Helmand's Sangin district, and two policemen were killed in a raid on their post in Kandahar town, also in the volatile south, security officials said.

The U.S. military said one of its soldiers was killed in the attack by a "significant" insurgent force on a forward operating base. A Canadian military spokeswoman said one Canadian was killed and three wounded, though not seriously.

"Coalition forces employed a variety of combined arms to include close air support and are believed to have killed at least a dozen enemy insurgents," the U.S. military said in a statement. One Afghan soldier was wounded, it said.

Twelve U.S. troops have been killed in fighting this year. Nearly 60 Americans were killed in Afghan fighting last year, the worst for U.S. forces since they invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban.

The Taliban vowed more violence saying their spring offensive had begun. "The weather is warming and Taliban attacks on coalition and Afghan forces have begun," Taliban spokesman Mullah Mohammad Hanif said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Fighting usually picks up in the Afghan spring when snow blocking mountain passes melts.

Despite the rising level of violence, the United States is hoping to trim its force of more than 18,000 troops in Afghanistan by several thousand, while NATO partners, including Britain, Canada and the Netherlands are sending about 6,000 more.

British troops are based in Helmand but a spokesman for the force said he had no information about Wednesday's fighting.

The 1.5 ton, 22 foot long missile has a range of 300 miles and appears capable of carrying a 500-pound warhead and the Pakistanis are already working on a nuclear weapon that would fit in it, the Web site said.

The Barbur uses GPS guidance, and the Pakistanis say it has stealth features, StrategyPage.com said.

Cruise missiles are low tech compared to ballistic missiles and GPS makes it easy to equip the missile with a highly accurate, and inexpensive, guidance system. Since the missiles fly low, they are hard to spot with radar.

Stealthiness makes the missile even more difficult for radar to pick up and it can be added by using the right materials, and shape, for the missile, the Web site said.

Cruise missiles are also a lot cheaper than ballistic missiles, costing about one fifth as much as a ballistic missile with the same range and payload, it said.

Datum reported that 31 percent of voters polled said they plan to vote for Humala, up 5 percentage points from mid-March, while support for center-right lawyer Lourdes Flores slipped 1 point to 26 percent.

In third place is former center-left President Alan Garcia, whose backing among voters rose 2 points to reach 21 percent.

Humala is a retired army commander who is most popular among Peru's poor and has the backing of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

International investors believe the economy would be best tended by Flores, who would be Peru's first woman president if elected.

None of the candidates is seen winning the 50 percent of votes plus one needed to triumph in the election's first round.

In second-round voting, the Datum poll showed Flores with 48 percent of votes and Humala with 41 percent.