Planes loaded with the food aid were in the air Sunday at the same time that jets were bombing military targets in Afghanistan in retaliation for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Since then, the C-17 cargo planes have blanketed isolated areas with 37,000 yellow plastic ration packets daily, each containing two meals.

The military said the drops are designed to ensure people who have been cut off from aid normally provided by international organizations do not go hungry.

"A lot has changed since the 11th of September, and especially since Sunday, so what we're trying to do is get food to the people who need it," Lt. Col. Ed Loomis, spokesman for U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany.

But the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization Medecins Sans Frontieres condemned the operation, saying Wednesday that the drops were a "military propaganda operation" that could endanger future aid operations.

"We would be more comfortable if it were not the Army distributing aid," said Christine Marcilly, a Paris-based spokeswoman for the agency, known in English as Doctors Without Borders. "If the same people who are waging war are dropping supplies, those receiving the aid and being bombed confuse the two roles. Any Westerner becomes assimilated with the enemy, and further aid is basically impossible."

International aid agency Oxfam joined the criticism, saying the air drops are expensive and inefficient.

Oxfam's New Zealand executive director Terri-Ann Scorer said the rations will only feed "37,000 for one day and yet there are 5 or 6 million people who need food to survive the winter."

Loomis said the aid is just part of a $320 million package for Afghanistan announced by President Bush Oct. 4. About 100,000 packages of a planned 500,000 have already been dropped.

The supplies have been distributed in northern, eastern and southwestern Afghanistan, without regard for whether the areas are under control of the Taliban, which has been sheltering Osama bin Laden, or the northern alliance opposition, Loomis said.

The supplies are flown in at a high altitude during the night from aircraft based in Ramstein, Germany, then dropped out of the back of the planes in large cardboard boxes that tear apart once they are in the air.

The ration packets then drop individually over 3-square-mile areas identified by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The system was devised after it was found that supplies on huge pallets dropped in the Balkans by parachute could be dangerous, Loomis said.

"The whole intent is to minimize the risk and disperse the rations in a way where people can get at them," Loomis said.

A spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said any method of delivering food should be applauded.

"Airdrops are not the most efficient way to deliver food," said spokesman Kris Janowski. "But it's impossible to say what the situation is like on the ground. So all food is welcome."