Pentagon memo guided 9/11 remains disposal

WASHINGTON -- The disposal of human remains from the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, including the incineration and dumping of some portions in a landfill, was based on high-level Pentagon instructions, the top Air Force general said.

Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, told reporters yesterday that the actions taken by the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware were based on written guidance issued in March 2002 by David Chu, the Pentagon personnel chief under then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has directed that the families be briefed on past practices of remains disposal. Pentagon press secretary George Little noted that the practice of disposing of remains in landfills was ended in 2008.

Chu did not specifically mention dumping incinerated residue of 9/11 remains in a landfill, but his words might have been interpreted to allow that final step. The Pentagon released a copy of the Chu memo, which was addressed to Thomas White, the Army's top civilian official at the time. The Army oversaw the Air Force's mortuary activities at Dover and elsewhere.

Schwartz said he became aware only on Tuesday that some portions of remains were dumped in a landfill. "To the best of our knowledge at this moment in time, we followed those disposition instructions" from Chu, he said.

The Chu guidance said unidentifiable remains that were mixed with fragments of "non-biological material" were to be "treated in the same manner as any biological tissue removed for surgical or diagnostic purposes (i.e. disposition by incineration)." Chu, now president of the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally funded think tank, did not return a call seeking comment.

Retired Gen. John Abizaid, head of an independent panel, issued a report Tuesday that assessed procedures at the Dover mortuary. In passing, it mentioned that the practice of dumping of some portions of remains in a landfill began shortly after the 9/11, terrorist attacks. It said several portions of unidentifiable remains from the Pentagon and from the hijacked plane near Shanksville, Pa., were cremated, incinerated and dumped in a landfill.