Has anyone seen any corroborating articles about this article ? In it, the UK Mirror reports that 40,000 NATO rations sent to feed Katrina victims by the UK gov't are scheduled to be incinerated by US officials. Apparently, worries about BSE ("mad cow") are the reason. Yikes! If there's more to this story, I'd like to hear it because this is pretty disheartening and certainly a slap in the face of our friends in the UK.

DEAR SWEET LIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is too asinine to be made up, only governmental stupidity could dream this up.

Oh yeah, I'm proud to be an American, yep yep yep. The rebellion is coming, mark my words.

Couldn't find any reference in mainstream news by searching Google News. But, found a couple of hits through Google's blog search.

That's on a par with this, which I saw frequently reported in the days following Katrina:

"Americans don't sleep in tents." --Unnamed FEMA official, responding to the head of the Hurricane Center of Louisiana State University who was trying to urge FEMA to set up tent cities.

There must be some unidentified law of nature that causes bureaucrats to lose half their IQ points upon assuming office.

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There must be some as yet identified law of nature that causes bureaucrats to lose half their IQ points upon assuming office
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Gee you must have the high quality bureaucrats.
I was sure they lost heaps more than half.

I'm not sure if it's that they lose more than half, or it's that they didn't start with as much as we give them credit for <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Having worked for the gummint briefly, I'm pretty sure it wasn't there to start with. I met a few (very few) incredibly talented civil servants, but the rest were just managing to radiate at 98.6F and failing that on occasion. It's an environment that selects for many of the least desirable traits in an effort to be "fair".

(Don't look at me that way. It was a student job. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> )

I work for our government for a few years as well.
It seems that those that did have the extra few IQ points wher smart enough to get out.

Sad isnt it.

Lets see, there is the jewish vote, black vote, union vote, veteran's vote, gun lobby etc. Anyone hazard how many brits take out US citizenship each year?

I couldn't find any other hard news references to this story. Still boggles my mind, it really does, if it's true.

I sent an email to CNN asking them to investigate this Mirror article. If you see the story covered on CNN tomorrow, you'll know where you heard about the story first! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Whle generally speaking I share the disdain for bureaucrats that others have expressed, something about this article has sent my BS detector into overdrive. Look at the hysterical tone. The article is dated 09-19 yet they mention "starving Americans" in the very first sentence. How many people are still starving in New Orleans? They also never mention any source by name-- not one. How is that possible for any news source that values credibility?

It won't surprise me if the story turns out to have some kernal of truth. Maybe the food couldn't be distributed because of one bureaucratic foulup or another. But this article reads like something out of the National Enquirer --and that's putting it politely.

Regards, Vince

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.

Whats that old quote,"the first casualty of war is the truth?" The Net is rife with urban myths and sensationalism reporting out of New Orleons that has largely been shown false. No mass rapes in the Superdome, black men wearing high end men's clothing (racist images of carpetbagger ex slaves bumping Scarlet off the sidewalk) or some brit's contribution of burned MRE's. It all may good copy, but was to journalism what Benny Hill is to Shakespeare.

Amen. What happened to the huge bonfires greased with fine British mutton while poor starving southern folk looked on? What happened to the Triple A being taken by relief workers? I even recall hearing about cannibalism in the Big Easy. All BS. I guess the New News Creed is: "When the facts become rumor, (or rumour), print the rumor."

As long as it sells.

Regards, Vince

P.S.: For our foreign friends who sent aid, especially the British: Thank You. It will be used. Maybe not in New Orleans, but somewhere. We all know how bureaucracy works and sometimes it ain't pretty. But don't let the press sell you on the idea we are not grateful--we are. God Bless You.

I'm just as cynical as the next guy about the press, but I wouldn't be so quick to label the original UK Daily Mirror article about a plan to incinerate the rations as "hysterical B.S." or "sensationalistic journalism". The original article didn't say the rations were already burned, just that they were trucked to an FDA incinerator in Little Rock to be burned.

It is certainly plausible that the original plan was to incinerate the rations. The prions responsible for causing Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease in humans are extremely tough. Incineration is pretty much the only large-scale method of destroying the prions (although there's some debate even about the effectiveness of incineration). So it makes perfect sense that incinerating the rations was the original plan if the USDA was worried about mad cow tainted beef, but once the press got wind of the plan and people were outraged, the gov't decided to hold onto the rations until they could figure out a more politically acceptable resolution. Now they're trying to quietly pawn them off onto other "more needy" countries like Guatemala. So far, there are no takers.

I bet that if the rations sit unused until some of the rations expire next year, the US gov't will still end up quietly incinerating them because that's the accepted way to dispose of potentially BSE-tainted meat.

I share norad45's gratitude to the UK and all the other countries that sent us supplies. That generosity just makes this particular situation all the more regretable and embarassing.