By Charley Keyes and Barbara Starr, CNN Senior National Security Team
updated 4:11 PM EST, Thu December 8, 2011
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Mortuary at Dover Air Force Base handles remains of returning war dead
New Jersey congressman says the Pentagon should have acted faster
An earlier report found mismanagement at the mortuary
Service members' body parts incinerated, buried with medical waste
Washington (CNN) -- The Air Force is admitting Thursday that it sent more sets of military personnel remains to a Virginia landfill than it originally acknowledged.
Backtracking on initial information about how it handled the remains of American service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Air Force now says the cremated body parts of hundreds of the fallen were burned and dumped in the landfill.
Earlier, the Air Force said only a small number of body parts had been buried in a commercial landfill and claimed it would be impossible to make a final determination of how many remains were disposed of in that manner.
The Washington Post broke the story Thursday, and the Air Force now confirms that body fragments linked to at least 274 fallen military personnel sent to the Dover Air Force Base Mortuary were cremated, incinerated and buried with medical waste. That procedure was in place between November 2003 and May 1, 2008. The Air Force also said that 1,762 body parts were never identified and also were disposed of, first by cremation, then by further incineration and then buried in a landfill.
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