Still can't find any more corroboration this morning besides blog entries. I did find this nice description of the rations and how they were transported to the US. Actually, it seems that 400,000 rations were sent by the UK on Sept 5th, and the quote by the British MoD seems to suggest that they were meant to feed US military personnel on relief operations, not Katrina "evacuees". The US DoD press reported back on Sept 5th that Rumsfeld was in Berlin with his British counterpart and publicly thanked the British gov't for their generosity. ( here)

There seems to be one independent, non-blog article by an American paper (Arkansas PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER.-Gazette) here, that seems promising, but I don't want to pay for a subscription to read it. The rations were first flown to Arkansas, to be distributed to the diaster area, so the fact that it's being reported on by an Arkansas paper lends a bit more credence to the story (although I wish I knew what they were saying!

Just curious, but have any ETSers recently eaten British combat rations while in the service? I think British BSE erupted in 1997, so any rations containing beef since then could have been "tainted". I'm just wondering because if the DoD let our troops eat these rations since '97, why would the US gov't burn them now? Just because the rations are on American soil versus being eaten by American GI's overseas? Now THAT would be bureacratic nit-picking!

copy from Ark-Dem Gazette:
(Long Reading)
At least some of the international aid pouring into Little Rock Air Force Base won’t make its way to victims of Hurricane Katrina, officials said Monday.
Some of the prepackaged Meals, Ready to Eat donated by the United Kingdom contain meat products, said Steven Cohen, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
British beef is barred from entering the United States because mad-cow disease, a degenerative disease affecting the central nervous system, was discovered in Britain in the mid-1980s. The disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is thought to cause variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a deadly brain-destroying illness, in humans.
Still, the restrictions have more to do with trade regulations than with safety, Cohen said.
"It’s not necessarily a question of the food being unsafe," Cohen said. "The question is that the law prohibits certain foods from certain countries."
U.S. troops are permitted to eat the NATO ration packs sent by the British.
Cohen said there was no need to consider whether to allow food deemed safe for the troops to be delivered to hurricane victims because enough food is making its way to the victims. "The response from all nations including the UK has just been fabulous."
The prepackaged meals that won’t be delivered to hurricane victims are in storage, Cohen said. He and other officials lacked details about where the food was being stored and how much of the overall shipments has been rejected. Cohen said that the meals account for a "very small amount of what’s been donated."
Darla Jordan, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said that American officials are working with the countries that made donations to determine what to do with the donated items.
In all, some 400,000 Meals, Ready to Eat were donated by foreign countries, said Army Major Paul Swiergosz, a spokesman for the Defense Department.
He said that if the food is needed it will be easy to separate products since the meals are in divided pouches. For instance, some European countries include wine in the meals, which is removed before being given to U.S. troops.
He also said that not all of packages contain meat as a main dish.
Some pallets awaiting shipment on Monday contained vegetarian meals, said Air Force Lt. Jon Quinlan, a spokesman for the Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville. The base has been the hub for all international aid, receiving shipments from Russia, China, Thailand, Egypt and others.
To date, the base has received 1,842 tons of goods from other countries, Quinlan said.

Hey, thanks a bunch, hillbilly! I was dying to find at least ONE more real news article about this. From the quality of the reporting, seems like the Ark-Dem Gazette is a decent paper, as opposed to some tabloid rag.

The article didn't shed any light on what will happen to these "rejected" rations, though, besides a possible reference to storing them. Perhaps those of us wanting to fortify our food stores can head down to Arkansas and stock up on some of the 40,000 rejected rations! <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> I'd eat them. And wine??? I gotta get me some of THOSE rations!

But anyway, it does sound like red tape is the root of the problem.

And in related developments, yesterday, the US Senate voted to block the import of high-grade Japanese beef (aka "Kobe beef") into the US until Japan lifts its ban on the import of American beef, implemented by the Japanese counterpart to our Food and Drug Administration. Mad cow was detected in US cattle a couple years back.

Politics! <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> How ironic that the same day the gov't is rejecting these rations due to laws meant to protect Americans from BSE, the Senate is trying to twist the arm of another "ally" to lift their ban on American beef (and enrich US cattlemen), meant to protect THEIR citizens from BSE! *sigh*

The paragraph below made me crack up!

" He said that if the food is needed it will be easy to separate products since the meals are in divided pouches. For instance, some European countries include wine in the meals..."

<img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I wonder how long until they expire? I imagine governments have stocks of MREs waiting for the next big war, and they would probably ship out the older stuff first. So perhaps this food would have had to have been destroyed in a year anyway.

having served as a U.S. INFANTRYMAN in europe(total of six years).. i have eaten many ration packs from other countrys...the brits have what is called a 24hour rat pack and provides a soldier with chow to keep him going for 24hours..its not in single one each meals like U.S. m.r.e. type rations, but three complete meals in one box...oh by the way the box also has a range card on the side for the soldier to use in the field for his sectors of fire....the older rat packs used to contain canned meals but the new ones contain m.r.e. type meals with some small food items still in cans.. they also have off the shelf type candys ...they claim to be the best rations in N.AT.O and i think that is correct <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.....vince g .11b inf....

I currently am a programmer on a flight simulation system, and I have been thinking about combining my knowledge of simulation with emergency management, and maybe becoming an emergency manager eventually.

After seeing some of the decisions, and things you have to work with, maybe I'll just move to hills and carve wood all day.

Well, at least if you do, you can post a question here about which is the best wood carving knife and get lot's of feedback from the ETSers here. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

But joking aside, all this ineptitude that we've seen recently just shows that we need MORE smart and dedicated people who really take emergency management seriously, not fewer.

Or you can post a question about a post <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

If any of you were wondering what happened to those 400,000 British NATO rations that were rejected...well, nothing at all. This article gives more details about what happened in the days after Katrina and what is currently going on.

So, $5.3 million worth of rations, transported at the cost of $4.7 million, and costing $16,000 a month to store, is just sitting in some warehouse after being rejected by the US Agricultural Department because there is a ban in British beef imports.

What a huge waste of money, especially if the rations are left unused until they expire next year.