We're NYer's... we remember the attacks, we remember roadblocks and troops with riot gear in the streets. We breathed the debris and the smoke that emanated from the rubble for months, we buried friends, and we truly feel for the survivors and families, BUT...
CIL at JPAC is already under-budgeted, over-tasked, under-manned and out of space. They cannot lay out the remains they have in storage now for lack of space. Their new facility is years away from realization, there is a 10-year backlog on recovery operations in LAOS ALONE. The North Korea JFAs have been on hold for a year. JPAC has a limited number of teams, already assigned to specific regions for recovery. It takes years to plan searches, excavations and recoveries. During and after the Christmas Asian Tsunami emergency recovery operation, NOT A SINGLE POW-MIA IDENTIFICATION WAS MADE for months because everyone was doing something else.
If the USG and its people want JPAC/CIL to become global forensic recovery specialists, then they better make damn sure this unit gets a hell of a lot more funding, more people, a new massive facility and be willing to pay for it.
Retasking JPAC/CIL for any operation other than emergency relief and POW-MIA recovery and identification will only prolong the frustration, pain and uncertainty that has plagued POW-MIA families for 15, 30, 50 and 60 years. WW II families receive regular contacts from European citizens with crash site locations and artifacts, but JPAC is overwhelmed, the families wait. Vietnam and Laos make JPAC's life difficult at best with a decade backlog for recovery in one country alone, the families wait. Nothing is happening in Korea, the families wait. The LSE facility has been BRAC'd... JPAC, DPMO, CIL and AFDIL do not have magic wands or crystal balls... there are finite resources and time constraints. The POW-MIA families have waited too long for answers. To diminish or divert the limited resources that are supposedly dedicated to this nation's 'Highest National Priority' is unacceptable.
STORY
"Health commissioner doubts that Sept. 11 toxins killed detective
BY PAUL H.B. SHIN
New York Daily News
NEW YORK - The city's top health official doubts that the death of Detective James Zadroga can be conclusively linked to toxins at Ground Zero - even though an autopsy found his fatal illness was "directly related" to his work at the disaster site.
City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said he would be "surprised" if the cause of Zadroga's death can be traced directly to the smoldering World Trade Center wreckage.
"An autopsy can determine whether there was damage to the lungs and it can determine whether that damage might have been related to foreign bodies," Frieden said during a local television news forum scheduled to air Sunday.
"But whether that was related to (the World Trade Center), I don't think that would be easy to say definitively," he said.
The commissioner's words were met with anger and frustration from Zadroga's parents, who are caring for the detective's orphaned 4-year-old daughter, Tylerann.
Tylerann is only entitled to a partial pension because her father's death in January is not considered "in the line of duty."
"They just don't want to open up a can of worms. They're probably worried about the money they might have to pay out," Zadroga's mother, Linda, said.
After speaking with the Ocean County, N.J., medical examiner who performed an autopsy on her 34-year-old son, she said there is "no doubt in my mind" that his death was caused by his work at Ground Zero.
"He said there was bone in the lungs and pockets that were filled with dust," she said.
In Albany, N.Y., state Assembly GOP leader Jim Tedisco has proposed overhauling the pension rules. Under Tedisco's proposal, Tylerann would get a 100 percent tax-free pension until she is 19 - or 23 if she's enrolled in college.
"We can't just turn our back on them. We must do what's right," said detectives union President Michael Palladino.
Palladino said first responders who die from ailments linked to Sept. 11 "are heroes and they should be treated that way."
Meanwhile, controversy raged over the revelation that hundreds more tiny bone fragments have been found recently atop the contaminated Deutsche Bank tower near Ground Zero.
Attorney Norman Siegel said the discoveries may affect a federal lawsuit against the city that he's been handling on behalf of 17 relatives of Sept. 11 victims whose remains have not been identified.
The families want the city to provide a "proper and dignified" burial for the millions of tons of fine particles dumped at Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island after Ground Zero debris was sifted for human remains.
The bank tower, owned by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., is awaiting demolition.
But the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, a group led by victims' loved ones, called on President Bush to take the building from the LMDC and put the Central Identification Laboratory - part of the U.S. military's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command - in charge of finding and identifying the remains.
New York Daily News correspondent Paul D. Colford contributed to this report. "
AND
"More victims' bones of September 11 attacks found in New York
NEW YORK, April 14, 2006 (AFP) - About 300 bone fragments of victims of the September 11 terror attacks were found this week near Ground Zero in New York during preparations for a demolition, sparking an outcry Friday from families.
The remains were found on a work site preparing to tear down the Deutsche Bank skyscraper next to the location of the World Trade Center, which was rendered unfit for use after the September 11, 2001 assault.
Seventy-four human remains were discovered on April 1 on the building's roof.
According to the New York City medical examiner's office, more human remains are expected to be found as the project continues.
"Whatever doesn't look like gravel, they examine," a spokeswoman for the office, Ellen Borakove, told The New York Times newspaper.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is responsible for analyzing traces of DNA found in the remains to identify victims.
In a statement Friday, The Skyscraper Safety Campaign, joined by other September 11 family groups, said they were "shocked and horrified" to learn of the discovery of the 300 human remains nearly five years after the attacks, not from the medical examiner's office but from the New York media.
The families also objected that work at the site did not involve forensic specialists.
"We call upon the federal government to immediately intervene at Ground Zero," the statement said.
They urged President George W. Bush to assist by assigning a military laboratory specialized in identifying the remains of troops held as prisoners of war or missing in action."