Replies

Geraldo Rivera should be glad he got out of Iraq without a broken nose, according to a former Green Beret who says the Fox News star has a history of jeopardizing military operations.
Ex-Army commando Keith (Jack) Idema isn't surprised that military officials accused Rivera of leaking their positions on the air. Idema tells us that, when he served as an adviser to Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan, he was ready to "punch out"

Rivera for allegedly putting his coalition comrades at risk with his newsgathering.

Idema, who figures prominently in Robin Moore's best seller "The Hunt for Bin Laden," was retired when he flew to Afghanistan in December 2001 to help Gen. Hazrat Ali.

"We had two- and three-man sniper teams hiding out in the mountains" of Tora Bora, recalls Idema. "Geraldo found out about it from the [anti-Taliban] mujahedeen soldiers. We were paying them between $25 and $100 a month. Geraldo put the word out that he would pay any Afghan who deserted the U.S. Army $100 a day to point out where the snipers were so he could get pictures of them."

Not surprisingly, Idema says, it wasn't hard to find volunteers. "Here are a couple of snipers hidden in this cave, and Geraldo comes prancing up.

Of course, now everybody knows where they are.

"One of my muj told me about him. I got into my damn car, drove to the hill where the media was camped to find Geraldo. He'd just left. Several of us were drawing straws about who would knock him out and escort him out of the place."

Rivera also caught heat in Afghanistan when he erroneously claimed to be standing on "hallowed ground" where U.S. soldiers had been killed by friendly fire.

A spokesman for Fox said the newsman couldn't be reached for comment. Maybe we'll hear from him once he's settled into his new digs in Kuwait.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/72378p-67059c.html