© APFILE - This Aug. 9, 2011, shows the closed gates at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware
Washington - Partial remains of several 9/11 victims were incinerated by a military contractor and sent to a landfill, a government report said Tuesday in the latest of a series of revelations about the Pentagon's main mortuary for the war dead.
The surprise disclosure was mentioned only briefly, with little detail, in a report by an independent panel that studied underlying management flaws at Dover Air Force Base mortuary in Delaware. A 2011 probe found "gross mismanagement" there, but until Tuesday there had been no mention of Dover's role in handling 9/11 victims' remains.
Air Force leaders, asked about the 9/11 matter at a news conference, said they had been unaware of it until the head of the independent panel, retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, held a Pentagon news conference Tuesday to explain his panel's findings.
"This is new information to me," Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said.
He said it was unclear whether the matter would be investigated further.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's press secretary, George Little, said Panetta "never would have supported" the disposal of remains in a landfill. "He understands why families would have serious concerns about such a policy."
Debra Burlingame, sister of Charles Burlingame, the pilot of the plane that was driven into the Pentagon by terrorist hijackers, said she was confused by the report. She said she attended a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery at which unidentified 9/11 remains were buried in an engraved casket.
"They were treated with great respect and great ceremony," Burlingame said. "The Department of Defense was exceedingly sensitive and treated those unidentified remains with great respect. ... I would want to know more."
The Abizaid report primarily focused on management reforms to a "dysfunctional, isolated" Dover mortuary chain of command. It cited the 9/11 matter while explaining the history of problems at Dover that came to light last year through complaints from whistle-blowers who revealed the mishandling of war remains.
The practice at Dover of cremating partial remains and sending them to a landfill began shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, the report said, "when several portions of remains from the Pentagon attack and the Shanksville, Pa., crash site could not be tested or identified."
The terrorist-hijacked airliner that slammed into the west side of the Pentagon killed 184 people, and the plane that crashed in a field near Shanksville killed 40.
The Abizaid report said that in line with Dover's policy, "cremated portions were then placed in sealed containers that were provided to a biomedical waste disposal" company under Air Force contract. "Per the biomedical waste contract at that time, the contractor then transported these containers and incinerated them."
The report said Dover authorities assumed that after incineration "nothing remained."
But a Dover management "query" found that "there was some residual material following incineration and that the contractor was disposing of it in a landfill." It added that use of the landfill was not disclosed in the waste disposal contract.
"We don't think it should have happened," Abizaid told reporters.
It was unclear whether families of the 9/11 victims were aware remains had gone to contractors and then to the landfill. In the case of the war dead, officials previously said the remains were given to contractors for disposal only in cases in which remains could not be identified or in which families had already buried their loved ones and had informed the military that they did not want to be told if additional remains were later found.
Such a development was not uncommon as the wars wore on in Iraq and Afghanistan, where bombs were the main insurgent weapon.
In the case of 9/11 victims, some remains from the Pentagon, where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed, were buried at Arlington National Cemetery on the anniversary of the attacks. Three caskets of unidentified remains from the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville were buried there last September.
In Pennsylvania, Somerset County coroner Wallace Miller said in an interview Tuesday that he was surprised that remains from Flight 93 might be involved in the new Pentagon report. "I wouldn't know how there would be any possibility how any remains would get to Dover," Miller said.
He said the only remains he knows of that would not be in Pennsylvania are those of four of the hijackers that are being held by the FBI for potential military tribunals.
A lawmaker who has closely followed the Dover scandal, Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., said the Pentagon has yet to fully explain the practice of disposing of partial remains in landfills.
"The Pentagon must provide absolute clarity and accountability as to what human remains were dishonored in this manner, and it must take far more aggressive steps to ensure this never happens again," Holt said.
Holt also revealed that he had written to Panetta on Feb. 6 asking for a fuller explanation of the history of remains disposal by Dover.
In the letter, Holt asked, "Regarding the aftermath of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, can the Air Force confirm that no 9/11 victim's remains were incinerated, mixed with medical waste and sent to a landfill?"
Holt also said he received correspondence in November from the acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, Jo Ann Rooney, stating that remains of the five hijackers responsible for the Pentagon attack were identified by Dover using DNA samples.
"How were the remains of the hijackers handled?" Holt asked Panetta.
More than 9,000 human remains recovered from the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York City remain unidentified because they are too degraded to match victims by DNA identification. The remains are stored at the city medical examiner's office and are to be transferred to a subterranean chamber at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, once set for opening this year but now delayed.
Diane Horning, who lost her son, Matthew, at the World Trade Center, said she was shocked by Tuesday's revelations.
"We need a protocol to be put in place so that we know this can never happen again," Horning said. She added, "Not only am I broken-hearted but I am outraged."
The Air Force on Tuesday laid out steps it is taking to resolve the problems at the Dover. But there continue to be several unresolved issues.
In a statement, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel said officials will release a report in mid-March on the retaliation taken against the workers who initially reported the mortuary problems.
The Special Counsel said settlements with the workers will be finalized shortly and will include efforts to correct their records and "make the whistle-blowers whole." Officials are also considering whether to take more severe disciplinary actions against supervisors who took part in whistle-blower retaliation.
Last year the Air Force disciplined, but did not fire, three senior supervisors for their role in the mishandling of remains. Officials are revisiting that issue because of the retaliation taken against the whistle-blowers.
NEADS Commander Col. Robert Marr must have crapped himself realizing a plan 30 years in the making was in jeopardy. He quickly ordered the fighters into a holding pattern to wait for flight 175 to strike BEFORE proceeding to New York. Upon seeing flight 175 strike (from 60 miles away based on pilot comment & in conflict with 911 Commission map) the pilots proceed to New York without orders or FAA clearance (witness testimony).
This explains The huge discrepancy between the 911 Commission map (which shows the Otis fighters only 50 miles out from Otis at 9:03 when WTC2 was struck) and the pilot's comments to the media that they flew,"full blower all the way" for a full 10 minutes (8:53-9:03) which if true they should have been over New York by 9:03 if they knew of flight 175 or not.
In closing the Otis holding pattern was made necessary ONLY because the pilots violated protocol and flew Supersonic. Had they followed protocol they would have arrived several minutes AFTER flight 175 which would have allowed the conspirators to spin it as,"OOppss just missed". 911 WAS an inside job.
The success of the 911 false flag attack depended upon the pilots of the fighter jets, scrambled in response to the reports of hijacked airliners, following protocol. As was shown clearly at Otis AFB, if the pilots were aware of a hijacked airliner heading towards New York or Washington DC they could not be counted on to follow protocol. In the case of Langley AFB protocol meant flying 60 miles East out over the Atlantic & sub-sonic flight [The pilots were specifically told by NEADS to fly sub-sonic-[Filson 2003 pg 65].
Once the attack in New York was finished (9:03) the game then became one of keeping fighters away from Washington DC to allow flight 77 to strike. At 9:09 Major Kevin Nasypany requested that Langley AFB be scrambled. That request was DENIED by NEADS Commander Col. Robert Marr. The reason given for denying that request is one of THE most obvious lies in the 911 Commission report. The stated reason is because the fighters scrambled from Otis AFB were dangerously low on fuel. The problem with this claim is that F-15's have a Combat radius of over 1,200 miles & (according to the official story) they had at this point traveled LESS than the 153 miles between Otis AFB and New York and had only been in the air 16 minutes (Why The Truth Movement hasn't made more is this obvious lie, I don't know). Had Langley been scrambled at this time, those jets could easily have been over Washington DC in time to stop Flight 77 even if they had followed protocol.
At 9:21 NEADS Commander Col. Robert Marr got his 'signal' to go ahead and scramble Langley. The signal came in the form of a telephone call from a Boston air traffic controller named Scroggins. Scroggins reported unconfirmed and mistaken (the call itself was a violation of protocol as the FAA is not suppose to call NEADS directly but only the NMCC in the Pentagon) information that flight 11 (first hijacked aircraft that struck WTC1) was still in the air and headed towards Washington DC. This was Col Marr's signal to go ahead and scramble Langley because only now did he have an excuse to send the Langley fighters North East Away from Washington DC at the very time flight 77 was approaching from the South West.
However, there was still the danger of the pilots discovering that there were reports of not one But two hijacked airlines ('Phantom' Flight 11 [false report] & flight 77) headed for Washington DC at the same time from opposite directions. If word of this got to the pilots, there is no doubt that the pilots would violate protocol and headed straight for Washington DC itself rather chasing after either one. If they had done that, they would have arrived in Washington DC in time to stop flight 77 from striking the Pentagon.
In order for the plan to succeed, they needed to prevent those pilots from getting their mission orders from someone in communication with air traffic controls outside of NEADS who could then tell the pilots