12/12/2005
Dessicants in food parcels
If you’re looking for pieces on Jack Idema and his team, please click on this link.
I found it interesting that Mariah Blake would talk about Jack Idema proliferating the rumor that the Taliban was poisoning the food that was being dropped by the American government to Afghanistan. Theoretically, this rumor could have been started by the American government itself to cover its ass.
It doesn’t take much to check facts, yet it’s obvious the Columbia Journalism review doesn’t care about facts–and didn’t do any fact checking at all in that piece “Tin Soldier”. She says Jack claimed
that the Taliban was poisoning the food that the United States was air-dropping to feed hungry Afghans.
Jack worked with retired Green Beret Lt. Colonel Gregg Long on tracking down the source of the “Taliban-poisoned” food. An explosives mines expert who had run de-mining operations in Laos and Cambodia, Long had skills that were necessary in Afghanistan. He had worked for DIA in the past, and was partnered with Idema.
Though they had drop zones mapped and ready to receive food drops, the Air Force dropped them wherever the hell they wanted to…BLIND…so it was difficult work, but he started collecting those airdropped food packs. Recovering them from the Afghans, he paid them $5 out of his own pocket so they could purchase rice instead. The Afghans had claims the HDRs (humanitarian daily ration[s]) were making them sick and once he had some samples from across northeastern Afghanistan, the mystery was quickly cleared up.
Dessicant packets–the same type of dessicant you find in any number of products at home to keep the inside dry–was packaged in small paper pouches that were similar in appearance to Afghan medicine or the spice packets in Russian noodles. Afghans ate them and were getting sick. Thinking the US was dropping medicine, they took it gratefully. Since the HDRs were printed in French, English, Spanish and German–the Afghans could not read what was written on the packages-none of these languages exist in remote Afghan villages. The Air Force did eventually begin to drop leaflets which explained in their own language how to eat the food.
After Colin Powell demanded answers regarding the team’s email, Natick Labs in Massachusetts denied the report and told the Pentagon and Powell that there was no desiccant in the HDRs. Washington believe them. An email came to Idema’s team from someone “higher up”, saying the team was wrong, their intel was bad, and they were basically out in left field and unreliable.
Which was interesting because here’s a suit in an office somewhere telling the guys that what they’re looking at is not what they’re looking at.
Idema sent them pictures of what they were looking at–desiccant packs via INMARSAT.
These HDRs were packed at low altitudes in Texas, Indiana and South Carolina. They’d been dropped at altitudes far exceeding ten thousand feet. The sealed packs expanded in the air, then hit the ground at terminal velocity, exploding the sealed food inside and creating tears in the outer protective plastic wrapper. Exposed to the Afghan terrain and harsh elements, the food inside rapidly spoiled and became contaminated. Digital pictures were transmitted through INMARSAT to Ft. Benning’s Battle Lab.
Rumsfeld demanded answers from Natick. The following day the team was ecstatic because a Natick official finally admitted the presence of desiccant and the more important contamination problem, stating the government contractors had violated DoD product specs.
SF Command moved to solve the problem. Rice started coming in with airdrops. USAID provided emergency funds to the UN’s World Food Program to finance drops of rice, wheat and cooking oil. WFP planes and Vietnam-vet crews had lots of experience dropping food in Africa, and it sure paid off in northern Afghanistan.
What could have been a disaster with the press had been curtailed by simple firsthand ground intel.
Ted Kavanaugh tells me that he called the Pentagon and they denied that dessicants were in the food, and that journalists were in an uproar because Idema “scooped” them.
Looks to me as though Mariah Blake didn’t think of checking on the story she was making up–probably because she was making it up!
It would seem to me that a school like Columbia would certainly be teaching about Journalism standards and ethics, but then…maybe not, considering the rags they pump out as excuses for reporting. Imaginative lies like the ones they’ve told about Jack Idema are much better suited for STAR MAGAZINE.
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December 12th, 2005 at 8:52 am
That is a very untold heroic story. Some have known it for a long while. But the fact that someone garnering a reputation with the CJR would purposefully twist the story is beyond my comprehension.
I think people who do know the injustice have to stick together and be willing to back these men up. I’m going to. Never be afraid of the truth. It will not let us down.
December 12th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
Great Story on the real Jack Idema! I would like to add that ANYONE that doubts your facts can contact ANY member of TIGER 03 (JSOTF Codename for ODA 595- 5th Special Forces Group (ABN), Fort Campbell, KY).
TIGER 03 was led by the greatest warrior of the conflict, Master Sergeant John Bolduc (he was Team Commander- no officer was on the team) and the second in command was Master Sergeant Kevin Morehead, who was later killed in Iraq in a heroic battle with al-Qaida, along with Bill Bennett on September 12, 2003. Idema attended the funeral on behalf of the Northern Alliance as their official representative and I was also there. “Media hound?” Not the way I see it. There were a dozen media people there looking for someone to interview and Idema never even told anyone but Morehead’s family and team who he was.
If you check the early October 2001 Reports from the DOD, I think you will find that it was the DOD PAO and an ASD who stated at a PRESS CONFERENCE that THEY believed the Taliban was poisoning the airdrops in Northern Afghanistan (I was already in the ISOFAC preparing to deploy when we were briefed on it).
During the press conference the DOD was defending dropping food and not bombs on Northern Afghanistan, which was of course the RIGHT thing to do because these people were, and are still, our allies, even if the American State Department has now deserted them and has us working with the new ANA (a joke of a Keystone Cop army).
The press and the NGOs were spreading unsubstantiated rumors and propaganda by the bushel basket. If the propaganda was successful then the Northern Alliance would think we were trying to poison them and fight against them. We could have easily lost them as a trusted ally, endangering all of the small 10 to 12 man SF teams which were just about to arrive on the ground. The HDR food packs were also yellow and resembled Soviet air drop mines. This was just one of the many problems. Jack Idema went into Northern Afghanistan with a primary mission to find out who WAS poisoning the food drops and to get more food drops to the Northern Alliance and get the right kind of food landing on actual drop zones instead of USAF “blind drops.” This was secretly coordinated by the DAT at both the American and Afghan Embassies in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Jack Idema found out the real cause of the poisoning and HDR problems. Idema FIXED the problem single handily, through initiative, ingenuity, and pure guts.
One night he set up an ambush on an HDR airdrop site expecting to engage the Taliban “poison saboteurs.” Instead Idema saw airdrops hitting allied mud huts and landing in minefields where children would then run into so they could collect their “presents” from America. He got that word back to DOD and USASOC asap.
I don’t think anyone that was truly in Northern Afghanistan can overlook the positive impact that Idema had on allied relations. So powerful that on Northern Alliance commander, who’s entire family had been killed by a US bombing in error, and then promised revenge against America, did not just embrace Idema, he actually became his chief bodyguard and fought next to him for months. It is my understanding from one of Massoud’s bodyguards that the same commander remains his close friend today.
Idema’s original HDR CRISIS report transmitted from Northern Afghanistan to Task Force Dagger Headquarters, USASOC, USSOCOM, SECDEF Rumsfeld, and General Powell, resulted in saving many lives, and completely changed the airdrop policy. It is also my understanding, from a third party source, that Major James Morris, who you interviewed, knew all about this because he was friends with Powell’s speechwriter, Joe Galloway (same fellow from General Hal Moore’s WE WERE SOLDIERS book and film). Another person who knew the story was a Special Forces Captain at the Counter-Terrorist Task Force, Kevin or Ken Harington, I think.
Major Jim Morris (probably more Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars in Vietnam then any General), was credited by Idema in a cable to TFD HQ as coming up with the idea to airdrop rice bags in larger wheat bags, so that when the rice exploded on impact it was contained by the outer bag instead of disappearing into the sand (quote from actual cable: “Major Jim Morris and General Hienie Aderholt used this technique in Vietnam when they were airdropping rice to Montagnards in the mountains of Vietnam- if it worked then it will work now so send the HDRs to Bosnia and drop us rice.”).
This solved the problem of the new airdrops and even the South African UN World Food Program pilots sent their thanks and accolades to Idema. After similar problems happened in Bamian, Idema briefed the team there and SOCEUR started doing the same thing with USAF drops there.
The way I see it is total jealousy. Everyone within a hundred miles wants to take credit for what Idema did, not just on the HDR investigation and resolution of the crisis, but on anything else they can.
Robert Morris (NOT Jim Morris) slightly rewrote Idema’s HDR report, put his name on it, and then submitted it (certainly that was illegal) for a USAID million dollar grant to his phony aid group “Partners International.” I still have a copy of the original report written by Idema but it is FOUO (marked For Official Use Only), so you can FOIA the real report from DOD PAO ASD (dated Nov. 4, 2001). Compare the two and you will puke. Robert Morris was even stupid enough to use pictures of Idema in it (he still has it downloadable on the Partners International website).
Ed Artis, who tried desperately to meet and “hang out” with SF teams in Northern Afghanistan, also claimed he “did it.” (Skurka, who you mention, should be asked about this, he was there, as was DIA LTC Long- who was not really “retired” at the time).
A mousy little USA Today reporter, Tim something, also tried to take credit for it in USA Today. Little Timmy got caught leaving Afghanistan with stolen art objects and smuggling antiquities, but USA Today never told you that story did they? I was at Bagram when that happened, and it was only him getting on his knees and crying that saved him from jail that day. Later he claimed the Afghans “robbed” him of his purchases. He was obviously smoking too much hash (also found on him that day).
Make no mistake about it, four of the men on my team currently here in Afghanistan know for absolute fact that Jack Idema’s version of the HDR story is true.
January 4th, 2006 at 1:31 am
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