Fort Jackson Poison Plot - nothing there

FoxNews says that the US Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID) is investigating reports of a plot by Muslim soldiers, enlisted as translators, to "poison the food supply" at Fort Jackson, SC, next to Columbia, the state's capital.

The ongoing probe began two months ago, Chris Grey, a spokesman for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, told Fox News.

The Army is taking the allegations “extremely seriously,” Grey said, but so far, "there is no credible information to support the allegations."

The suspects were part of a Arabic translation program called "09 Lima" and use Arabic as their first language, two sources told Fox News. Another military source said they were Muslim.

I finished my Army career as the chief of public affairs for CID Command and became fairly expert in investigative procedures. If, after two months of investigation, CID agents have "no credible information to support the allegations," then I feel very safe saying that there is nothing to see there, move along. Nor should you take Mr. Grey's statement as misdirection or cover. If there were substantive leads for an ongoing investigation, he would have said simply that the investigation continues and then said nothing more about it. Army PAOs do not do cover up, they just shut up. After all, as my colonel kept reminding me when I was chief of media relations for XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, "you will never get into trouble for saying too little."

A word about CID. It is a major command of the Army, meaning that its commanding general (Brig. Gen. Colleen McGuire) reports to the Army's chief of staff. The full name is US Army Criminal Investigation Command, but the abbreviation is USACIDC, pronounced (practically all Army acronyms are pronounced rather than spelled out) "You-suh-sid-see." However, the most common referral is simply, CID, which is spelled out, "See-Eye-Dee."

The reason is that the outfit was formed in France by command of Gen. John. J. Pershing in World War One, when it was originally named Criminal Investigation Division. Upon being made a major command in 1971, the "D" was retained as an historical artifact and reminder of its roots. Besides, the Army already had (and still has) a "CIC," the Counter-Intelligence Corps, which operates under the auspices of the Assistant Chief of Staff of the Army, G2, intelligence.

CID is the Army's FBI, the Army's equivalent of the Navy's NCIS, which inexplicably has a TV series about it (a wildly unrealistic one at that). Its agents are very highly trained and skilled. If there was anything going on at Fort Jackson, they would have busted it by now.

Unless ...

If there is some substance to the basics of the story, and if there is a Muslim connection, then I would bet that CIC agents were also involved from the beginning, to try to trace the breadcrumbs of the plot (if there was a plot) to see where it led. If there was trail, the FBI would have had to have been brought into the investigation at some point, too. So those three agencies conceivably could still be peeling the onion (I guess I'm into foodstuff metaphors today).

But that's a real stretch. My gut tells me, "nothing to see here, move along."

Update: CBN News blogger Erick Stakelbeck writes that "five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina were arrested just before Christmas. It is unclear whether the men are still in custody."

There is not a scintilla of credibility in this report, not least because Stakelbeck is evidently entirely ignorant of military investigation procedures. Accused soldiers are not kept in "custody." Fort Jackson does not have a jail, it has detention cells for very temporary detention of suspects. There is no bail system in the Army and it is unusual for accused soldiers not be be released back to their units, where their commander may place them on restricted movement and/or under watch 24/7.

Usually, there are arrangements with a local sheriff's office for custody of soldiers accused of violent felonies; someone charged with assault or murder, for example, is not someone you want to put back into his barracks room under strict orders not to flee or hurt anyone. But you have to be dreaming if you think that five presumably Muslim soldiers, accused of a murder conspiracy, and held in the Columbia jail, would not have been reported in the media long ago. Trust me, they ain't there.

Update: As a commenter points out, accused soldiers denied release to their commander by the magistrate are normally held at an Army regional confinement facility. When I court-martialed a couple of my soldiers when I was a company commander at Ft Jackson 30 years ago, they were held at the RCF at Ft Gordon, Ga., pending trial, and were transported back to FJSC if they needed to be there before the trial. It would be very unusual for a military member to actually be held in custody at a civil jail on behalf of a military provost marshal.

As for Stakelbeck's claim that his information is from a "source with intimate knowledge of the investigation," that is similarly bogus. The only people who would have such knowledge are the CID agents, the post provost marshal, the post's commanding general and deputy CG, the post's chief of staff and probably the secretary of the general staff, CID's command chain and that's pretty much it. There may be another two or three officers, but only maybe. And I absolutely guarantee not one of these persons is breathing a word to Stakelbeck or any other reporter. That's what Mr. Grey is for, see above, and I'd even say that Fort Jackson's PAO is referring questions to him. (He works at CID's headquarters at Fort Belvoir, Va.)

It's important to note that the CID agents stationed at Fort Jackson do not work for the post's commanding general. They do not take orders from him regarding investigative matters. The post's CG has no authority either to initiate an investigation nor to truncate or end one.

A final note: I served with CID's Brig. Gen McGuire when we were both stationed at the Pentagon in the early 1990s.

My follow-on post is here.

Update, Friday, 8:10 a.m. CST: CBN has apparently yanked the story off its site:

11:15 a.m - the story is back up, almost completely rewritten and now saying, "It is unclear whether the men are still in custody" and quoting FJSC spokesman Patrick Jones as saying the investigation is still ongoing, and adds,

A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators suspect the "Fort Jackson Five" may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, D.C., area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas

Sorry, I'm still not buying that there was any actual plot to poison food supplies at Ft Jackson. Whether the FJ5 might have been "in contact" with the DC5 is a question I will leave open - military members enjoy freedom of communication and such contact is possible, but has to be counted as very speculative at this time.

I retract none of my scoffs at citing an unnamed "source with intimate knowledge of the investigation," see above.

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