Army Investigating Arabic Translators at Fort Jackson

(Feb. 19) -- The Army began investigating in December allegations that five soldiers at its Fort Jackson training base in South Carolina were involved in a plot to poison the food supply there, the Christian Broadcasting Network reported. The investigation began the month after the deadly attack at Fort Hood in Texas and is ongoing, according to The Associated Press.

The five soldiers were members of the 09 Lima program, which trains native foreign-language speakers to be translators and interpreters within the Army. All were Arabic speakers, according to CBN. In the time since the investigation began, the Army has relocated the program from Fort Jackson to Fort Huachuca in Arizona, the Army Times reported.

Patrick Jones, a spokesman for Fort Jackson, told the Army Times that "there has been no credible evidence to support the allegations" and said the soldiers are not being detained.

And today, the South Carolina newspaper The State reported that a local law enforcement official said the plot was never attempted and was instead merely a rumor started by unhappy soldiers.

Fort Jackson, which covers 52,000 acres in Columbia, S.C., is the Army's largest training base, with 50 percent of all new soldiers and 80 percent of all new female soldiers training there each year. A total of 50,000 soldiers pass through the base each year.

Soldiers at Fort Jackson on line in the dining facility.

Tim Dominick, The State / MCT

Soldiers line up at the Fort Jackson dining facility. The Army is investigating allegations that five translators were involved in a plot to poison the base's food supply.

A Fort Jackson spokesman told the AP that the investigation involves "potential verbal threats against fellow soldiers." A spokeswoman said there had never been any danger to the community on the base. The Army's Criminal Investigative Service is conducting the investigation.

There has been much speculation online about the case, with many people asking why it has taken so long for the investigation to come to light. Fox News and CBN are both reporting that the soldiers are Muslim, but this has not been confirmed by the Army. CBN also reports the soldiers may have been in contact with five Americans who were arrested in Pakistan in December, suspected of planning terrorist attacks.

Donald Sensing, a blogger from Tennessee who says he worked for the Criminal Investigative Command, doesn't put much stock in the reports:

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.

A commenter on Michelle Malkin's blog looked at the story from an entirely different angle:

"Now that makes me mad," backwoods conservative wrote. " I have fond memories of the food at Fort Jackson."