Bones fiasco taints official 9/11 probes

"The exhaustive search for human remains at Ground Zero somehow missed key areas -- an oversight that may have kept scores of 9/11 families from having a true burial of their loved ones' remains," writes Greg B. Smith in Sunday's New York Daily News after more human remains were unearthed at the site of the World Trade Center disaster.

"Two whole office buildings and many underground chambers never underwent a thorough search," the newspaper reported.

A badly damaged skyscraper at 130 Cedar Street was visually searched for remains shortly after the attacks, the paper found, but the building was choked with debris and toxic dust. Later the debris was removed, but the city has no record of its removal, the News found, although the building had contained pieces of an airplane.

So not only did a number of human remains apparently vanish with no accountability, so did important forensic evidence: pieces of the attack airplane.

Though the city Fire Department had responsibility for the search for remains, it is not clear why there are no city records of the removal of 130 Cedar Street's debris and forensic evidence.

However, it is obvious that we have yet another example of important information regarding the destruction of the World Trade Center that has turned up missing.
These enormous blank spaces in the investigative trail can only cast a pall over the quality of the official investigations conducted in the aftermath of 9/11.