Free Republic

When Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain opens a hearing today [Wednesday] on an Air Force proposal to lease 100 Boeing 767 tanker aircraft, he will cast himself as a defender of the public interest against wasteful defense spending.  It is, therefore, no small irony that this hearing – and the dilatory, many-months-long process it culminates, is the real waste of time and energy, to the detriment of the national security.             After all, as members of the Commerce Committee surely know, most Americans understand full well the nature of leasing.  Tens of millions of them have taken advantage of this...

Boeing has received a contract worth $188 million from the U.S. Air Force to continue development and production of the small diameter bomb. Boeing will build an estimated 24,000 weapons and 2,000 carriages over the next 10 years at its production facility in St. Charles, Mo. The small diameter bomb will be used on the F-15E, the F/A-22, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems and almost all other weapons platforms. The program is expected to generate up to $2.5 billion in sales to the Air Force, Boeing said. The size of the bomb, 70 inches long...

[IMRA: The beauty of the series of private industry contracts providing American technical assistance to the Saudi armed forces is that it considerably stretches the envelope of possible Saudi military activity that could be carried out without jeopardizing the assistance. It might be hard to imagine American GI's providing ongoing technical assistance and support services to Saudi forces participating in an attack against Israel in a joint operation with Egypt but the continued functioning of a private American contractor under those circumstances might be a different story.] WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The United States has decided to continue aid for the...

<p>Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has been selected to operate a bank the U.S. is creating in Iraq to manage billions of dollars to finance imports and exports.</p> <p>J.P. Morgan, the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, will lead a group that includes 13 banks representing 13 countries to run the bank for three years, said Peter McPherson, the top U.S. economic adviser in Iraq.</p>

<p>Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Halliburton Co., the company formerly headed by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, has received more than $1.7 billion in contracts in connection with the war in Iraq, the Washington Post reported on its Web site.</p> <p>Halliburton's Brown and Root unit received about $1 billion in contracts for work for the military through mid-August, the newspaper said, citing data from the Army Joint Munitions Command. The company also received $705 million for oil field rehabilitation work for the Army Corps of Engineers, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified corps spokesman.</p>

The U.S. Army and the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMoD) have selected a Northrop Grumman Corporation design concept for the Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser (MTHEL) prototype, a laser weapon capable of shooting down short-range rockets and artillery projectiles in flight. ``MTHEL represents a transformational weapon system -- the first mobile directed energy weapon that will be able to destroy tactical airborne threats in midair,'' said Pat Caruana, Northrop Grumman Space Technology vice president for missile defense. ``The system meets critical air and missile defense needs for both the U.S. Army and IMoD and represents the culmination of over 30 years...

Taiwan yesterday threatened to scrap a 10-aircraft order that government-controlled China Airlines (CAL) had placed with Boeing after the US aircraft-maker cancelled a visit by the island's vice-president to a company plant. Taiwan Transport Minister Lin Ling-san, who chairs a foundation which controls the carrier, said he would ask CAL to weigh the feasibility of ending the contract it awarded Boeing. "National interest should also be taken into consideration, although the deal was commercial in nature," Mr Lin said. "What Boeing has done to Vice-President [Annette] Lu [Hsiu-lien] was really too much and impolite." CAL said that it would "immediately...

ROLLS-ROYCE, the aeroengine manufacturer, is on course to win a £3 billion contract to refit the US fleet of B52 bombers. The company confirmed yesterday that it has put forward two plans for updating the engines of the aircraft after being approached by Boeing and the US Air Force. The B52s, which were used extensively in the Iraq war, are central to America’s bomber force but they are still powered by engines designed in the 1950s. The US Air Force has 85 in its active fleet and nine in reserve, each with eight engines. Analysts said the contract could be...

THE French and Germans are scrambling for lucrative Iraqi contracts — despite bitter opposition to the war.Their recession-hit firms are desperate to cash in on rebuilding the country wrecked by Saddam’s 25-year tyranny.French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder are backing their firms’ bids.It puts them in direct competition with Britain, which put lives on the line to oust Saddam.Around £100BILLION is to be spent on new telecoms, schools, hospitals, power stations, highways and oil pipelines. One of the biggest contracts up for grabs is for rebuilding Umm Qasr seaport. Tony Blair wants that order to go to...

Poland bids to supply Kalashnikovs to Iraqi army WARSAW, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Poland, a U.S. ally in the war to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, wants to sell Soviet-designed assault rifles to a new Iraqi army, a Polish arms trader said on Friday. The U.S.-led transitional administration in Iraq is considering equipping Iraq's reconstituted army with AK-47s because Iraqis are familiar with the weapon. "We have placed a bid to supply 34,000 AK-47 rifles to Iraq," Roma Sarzewska, spokeswoman for arms trader PHZ Bumar, told Reuters. She declined to give more details. Poland hopes to win the order because...

By NEELA BANERJEE New York Times August 08, 2003 The Bechtel Group, one of the world's biggest engineering and construction companies, has dropped out of the running for a contract to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry, as other competitors have begun to conclude that the bidding process favors the one company already working in Iraq, Halliburton. After the United States Army Corps of Engineers quietly selected Halliburton in the spring to perform early repairs of the Iraqi oil business in the aftermath of the war, other companies and members of Congress protested that the work should have been awarded through...

US-firm contracted to support economic reform in Iraq The US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a nine million dollar initial award to McLean, Virginia-based BearingPoint, Inc., to support integrated and sustainable economic reform in Iraq. The one-year contract is intended to facilitate Iraq's regional and international economic integration, stimulate the country's international trade engagement and increase employment and broad-based prosperity. BearingPoint Inc.'s work will support activities and policies undertaken by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which are designed to create a competitive private sector. Under the terms of the contract, BearingPoint, Inc. may examine current Iraq government policies,...

Lawmaker predicts defeat for 'Buy American' language By William New, National Journal's Technology Daily A provision that would limit Defense Department procurement to U.S. companies will be defeated during House-Senate negotiations over the Defense appropriations bill for fiscal 2004, a House lawmaker said on Wednesday. "We're not going to stop our cooperation with our allies," Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., told an audience of government officials and defense technology contractors. "We will back off." Weldon praised the sponsor of the so-called Buy American Act, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., but said curtailing cooperation with tech companies in...

Homeland Security extends smart-card deal for 10 years By Vandana Sinha GCN Staff The Homeland Security Department has awarded a 10-year, $200 million follow-on contract to an existing five-year identification card deal. Datatrac Information Services Inc. will continue to provide services to the department under the Integrated Card Production System contract. The Richardson, Texas, company has produced several million permanent resident cards, border crossing cards and employment authorization documents for the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS), the former Immigration and Naturalization Service.

And then there were two. Sprint, the third-largest long-distance phone company, may join MCI/WorldCom - in being suspended from winning federal contracts. Government investigators recommended considering that Sprint be barred from federal work for overbilling practices. The move is "unprecedented and totally without merit," Sprint said in a statement. Sprint, which gets more than $600 million annually from the U.S., agreed in June to pay $5.2 million to settle Justice Department charges it defrauded federal clients. Sprint didn't admit to wrongdoing. The General Services Administration that month initiated similar proceedings against MCI, which last week was suspended from federal contracts...

Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) of Edina has received a four-year, $15 million Air Force contract to develop a warhead capable of neutralizing chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, the Pentagon said Monday. A team of 12 engineers and project managers at Alliant's ordnance and ground systems division in Plymouth will research, design, develop and test the bomb, which is called the Shredder. The new precision weapon will be designed to target and penetrate the hardened bunkers where weapons of mass destruction are typically kept, officials said.

Israeli firm wins public telephone contract in Iraq Iridium Satellite Israel is supplying Iraq with public telephones worth four to five million dollars. The global satellite voice and data communication provider was authorized last month by the office of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to sell its mobile satellite communications services, subscriber terminals, and related equipment in Iraq. According to CEO of Iridium Satellite Israel Ami Schneider, the order was placed by a Jordanian company, reported Globes. The company also plans to market several thousands of mobile telephones in Iraq. Israel’s Minister of Finance Benjamin Netanyahu signed a general...

War On The Cheap-where were the supplies? Waiting in Kuwait for the invasion to begin, Davis and others in Fox Company had reason for optimism -- they were, after all, part of the greatest military force on Earth. But on March 19, the night before the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Regiment, crossed the Iraqi border, Marines in Fox Company, drawn mainly from Utah and Nevada, learned they would not have armored vehicles equipped with powerful weapons. Instead, they would ride into combat in soft-sided trucks with few heavy arms. "It was probably one of the scariest things I had ever been...

08/03/03 David Wood Newhouse News Service Washington - U.S. troops in Iraq suffered through months of unnecessarily poor living conditions because some civilian contractors hired by the Army for logistics support failed to show up, Army officers said. Months after American combat troops settled into occupation duty, they were camped out in primitive, dust-blown shelters without windows or air conditioning. The Army has invested heavily in modular barracks, showers, bathrooms and field kitchens, but troops in Iraq were using ramshackle plywood latrines and living without fresh food or regular access to showers and telephones. From Our Advertiser Even mail delivery...

Machine Tool Co. Bankruptcy Sends Ripple Through JSF Program By James Ott July 27, 2003 MONKEY Wrench After winning the $18.9-billion contract to build the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. in the summer of 2002 placed a $12.3-million order with Ingersoll Milling Machine Co. for custom-made machine tools to produce parts for the stealthy tactical aircraft. As of April of this year, Lockheed Martin had paid Ingersoll more than half the contract price but it still had no machines delivered. Then came the jarring news. Ingersoll had shut down. A giant in the machine tool field,...