'' The Bush administration's much publicized food ration airdrop in northern Afghanistan - hailed by the Pentagon as a way to feed starving residents while winning their loyalty - achieved neither goal in many targeted areas, military experts, aid workers, and a report by retired US special forces officers now conclude.

The report, recently circulated in the Defense Department and on Capitol Hill, found the airdrops so problematic that it called for an end to the project, saying it was not winning the Afghans' trust and was thus ''in direct opposition to US military goals.''

[....]

''We immediately recognized there was something really, really, wrong,'' said Lieutenant Colonel Greg Long, a retired special forces officer on a civilian mission in Afghanistan last fall who contributed to the critical report by the nonprofit Partners International Foundation.

Long was stunned to find a child grasping one of the yellow food packages - its wrapping ruptured, possibly from impact - with spoiled food inside.

He went on to examine at least 500 food parcels collected from Northern Alliance territory - from Khojabahuddin and Cha-e Ab to Kunduz in the first two weeks of November. He found that nearly 70 percent of the packages ruptured and exposed their contents. About 90 percent of those had spoiled food.

''The majority of them had a gaseous odor and foul smell,'' said Long. ''There were some Afghans that would eat them. But the majority of them would not.''

The foundation's report stated: ''Food packs that make [Afghanistan's] people sick is just one more reason to hate the United States in an already volatile environment.''

[....]

Adding to Afghans' confusion, the color of the food packages resembled that of deadly, unexploded BLU-92 cluster bomblets.

''They have been conditioned through mine awareness to avoid yellow,'' said Mark Hiznay, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch in Washington, D.C. ''

- Boston Globe

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