You’ll pay for that & other news
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“When I served four years in the military, it wasn’t so that Bechtel, KBR, Halliburton and all the other corporations could make money and buy politicians to further drag out the war and create policies that support all that,” Bodell said. “I fought for the Constitution, for representation and for freedom of the American people.” ~ Kole Bodell, Salt Lake City, UT
Ex-officer indicted for coercing soldiers
(Windsor Star) – January 21, 2012 – A former Danish officer has been indicted for threatening to send troops under his command to the Afghan front line if they refuse to pay a fine for certain errors, website Politiken said Friday.
The 33-year-old, in charge of a royal guard unit in Afghanistan, “put pressure on a number of soldiers in Afghanistan daily to contribute to a system of illegal financial penalties,” said the website.
“If they refuse, a place awaits them on the front line whenever the unit was to carry out perilous missions in the province of Helmand,” which is torn by unrest, said the website.
Soldiers are required to pay between $200 to $500 in fines if “for example they fall asleep during their watch duties, fire a shot accidentally or forget to shut an armoured vehicle,” said the website. (Click HERE for article)
Boeing to Pay U.S. $4.4 Million to End Chinook Billing Case
Sophia Pearson – (Bloomberg) – January 20, 2012 – Boeing Co., the second-largest defense contractor, agreed to pay the U.S. $4.4 million to resolve allegations that it overbilled the government for work on Chinook military helicopters.
The settlement requires Boeing to retrain its employees and make improvements to software it uses to track its billing, Philadelphia U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger said today in a statement. A whistle-blower lawsuit alerted the government to the issue, according to the statement.
“Some of the most important cases begin with a citizen who sees something wrong and speaks up,” Memeger said in the statement. “Whistle-blowers who notify the government of possible fraud allow us both to correct that specific problem and to prevent similar misconduct from recurring in the future.”
The U.S. Defense Department awarded Boeing a contract in 2003 to produce and modify new Chinook helicopters as part of the Army’s effort to modernize its fleet. More than 100 Chinooks were ordered. (Click HERE for article)
How The Web Killed SOPA and PIPA
Carl Franzen – (TPM) – January 20, 2012 – Leaders in Congress on Friday effectively killed two pieces of anti-online piracy legislation following the increasingly vocal protests of tens of thousands of websites and millions of Internet users.
That’s right, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate are, for all practical purposes, dead in the water.
Sure, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) used the word “postponed” in their announcements, saying that Congress would only take a breather, but would certainly not give up for good on its goal of passing some sort of legislation designed to combat overseas “rogue” websites hosting pirated American content.
But whenever Congress decides to re-engage the online piracy fight — and it could be a while, given just how acrimonious the debate over the bills became in the last week — it’s almost certain that SOPA and PIPA won’t be revived in any recognizable form. (Click HERE for article)
Massachusetts Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Export Military Antennae to Singapore and Hong Kong
(DoJ) – WASHINGTON – January 20, 2012 – Rudolf L. Cheung, 57, a resident of Massachusetts, pleaded guilty today in federal court in the District of Columbia to conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act in connection with the unlawful export of 55 military antennae from the United States to Singapore and Hong Kong.
The plea was announced by Lisa Monaco, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; John Morton, Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); Mark Giuliano, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI’s National Security Branch; and Eric L. Hirschhorn, Under Secretary for Industry and Security at the Commerce Department.
Cheung serves as the head of the Research & Development Department at a private company that manufactures antennae. Over the past 17 years, he has designed or supervised the development of a full library of antennae made by the firm, many of which have military applications and are used by defense contractors. Some of Cheung’s inventions are used in the U.S. space program. (Click HERE for article)
Feds question Staunton officers
Former soldier charged with selling stolen military gear to 5 in city police, records show
Brad Zinn – (News Leader) – STAUNTON -January 19, 2012 – A former National Guardsman and bouncer at a downtown Staunton restaurant is under federal indictment, accused of openly selling stolen military equipment in direct view of off-duty Staunton police officers and making numerous transactions with several city policemen, federal court documents show.
Michael W. Tutwiler, 30, is scheduled for a Feb. 8 jury trial in United States Western District Court in Charlottesville, but court records state plea negotiations are currently taking place.
A federal grand jury indicted Tutwiler on Oct. 21.
Tutwiler was a specialist in the Virginia Army National Guard, A Company, 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Brigade in Charlottesville, according to a federal affidavit.
Five officers from the Staunton Police Department were questioned by federal authorities in connection with the probe. The affidavit said some officers traded equipment with Tutwiler, receiving medical supplies, clothing, weapon-mountable flashlights, gun rail covers, body armor, ammunition magazines and gun-cleaning kits. (Click HERE for article)
Military contract managed in Warren at center of Carl Icahn’s proxy fight for Navistar-Oshkosh merger
Chad Halcom – (Crain’s Detroit Business) - January 19, 2012 – A military-vehicle contract managed in Warren is at the center of billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s proxy fight to get his fellow shareholders to support a possible merger of Navistar International Corp. and Oshkosh Corp.
A shareholder statement submitted this month to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on behalf of Icahn Partners LP and other Icahn-controlled investment funds and companies cites the handling of the contract for the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles, managed by subsidiary Oshkosh Defense.
Icahn owns 10 percent of Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Corp. and 9.51 percent of Warrenville, Ill.-based Navistar. Oshkosh Defense — which has developed a technical center in the Arsenal Industrial District tax-free renaissance zone in Warren — is the military’s leading supplier of tactical wheeled vehicles and has been the largest single contractor with the U.S. Army Tacom Life Cycle Management Command in Warren over the past three years. (Click HERE for article)
Triple Canopy Forms Security Contract Partnership
Gino Troiani – (ExecutiveBiz) – January 18th, 2012 – Triple Canopy and security firm Osen-Hunter are teaming up to pursue global security service contracts in support of U.S. government priorities, the companies announced Tuesday.
Triple Canopy told ExecutiveBiz in an e-mail, the new partnership was formed as a result of the current international security paradigm, as it is experiencing dramatic changes, precipitated by interrelated international and domestic economic realities as well as geo-political pressures. (Click HERE for article)
Marubeni Corporation Resolves Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Investigation and Agrees to Pay a $54.6 Million Criminal Penalty
$1.7 Billion in Total Penalties and Forfeiture Orders Obtained for Scheme to Bribe Nigerian Government Officials to Obtain Contracts
(DoJ) – WASHINGTON – January 17, 2012 – Marubeni Corporation has agreed to pay a $54.6 million criminal penalty to resolve charges related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for its participation in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts, the Justice Department’s Criminal Division announced today.
The department filed a deferred prosecution agreement and a criminal information today against Marubeni in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The two-count information charges Marubeni with one count of conspiracy and one count of aiding and abetting violations of the FCPA. Marubeni is a Japanese trading company headquartered in Tokyo.
According to court documents, Marubeni was hired as an agent by the four-company TSKJ joint venture to help TSKJ obtain and retain EPC contracts to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities on Bonny Island, Nigeria, by offering to pay and paying bribes to Nigerian government officials, among other means. TSKJ was comprised of Technip S.A., Snamprogetti Netherlands B.V., Kellogg Brown & Root Inc. (KBR) and JGC Corporation. Between 1995 and 2004, TSKJ was awarded four EPC contracts, valued at more than $6 billion, by Nigeria LNG Ltd. to build the LNG facilities on Bonny Island. The government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation was the largest shareholder of NLNG, owning 49 percent of the company. (Click HERE for article)
War Zones Can Be Productive for Multimodal Freight and Logistics Groups
(Handy Shiping Guide) – AFGHANISTAN – EUROPE – January 17, 2012 – Unfortunately there is nothing like a war zone or an area of political conflict to generate large volumes of work for those in the freight and logistics sector and the recent situation in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan has proved no different. We have witnessed several Middle Eastern headquartered companies responsible for lucrative contracts, Kuwait based Agility still has an ongoing dispute with the US Government only to be succeeded by Anham, and now their fellow countrymen at Move One Logistics has unveiled their latest project to Afghanistan.
The Dubai based company has begun a multimodal contract shipping over 2,000 pallets to locations throughout Afghanistan. The pallets, which include food trays, paper cups, paper plates, etc., are expected to reach their destinations by early March having travelled by rail and truck freight and ocean shipping from Port Batummi in Georgia. The contract will utilise between 80 and 100 rail wagons plus up to 100 trucks. Miklos Papp, Move One’s Warehouse Supervisor outlined the route taken saying:
“From Batummi, we will send the cargo to Baku, Azerbaijan by rail and onwards to Aktau in Kazakhstan by sea. Rail is then used again from Aktau to Termez, Uzbekistan and finally, the cargo will be delivered to different locations in Afghanistan by truck after transiting the Hairaton border.” (Click HERE for article)
Pentagon Vow on Cybersecurity to Ease Contractor Pain From Cuts
Chris Strohm & David Leman – (Bloomberg) – January 17, 2012 – U.S. military plans to invest more in cybersecurity and space-based capabilities may ease the blow for contractors such as Northrop Grumman Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. facing cuts in other defense programs.
The Defense Department intends to beef up spending on computer network protections and satellite intelligence systems, while targeting troops for cuts under a global strategy released last week. Funding levels, which were not specified, will be detailed in next month’s federal budget proposal. (Click HERE for article)
Privatizing the War on Terror: America’s Military Contractors
John W. Whitehead – (NJ Today) – January 16, 2012 – “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”—James Madison
America’s troops may be returning home from Iraq, but contrary to President Obama’s assertion that “the tide of war is receding,” we’re far from done paying the costs of war. In fact, at the same time that Obama is reducing the number of troops in Iraq, he’s replacing them with military contractors at far greater expense to the taxpayer and redeploying American troops to other parts of the globe, including Africa, Australia and Israel. In this way, the war on terror is privatized, the American economy is bled dry, and the military-security industrial complex makes a killing—literally and figuratively speaking.
The war effort in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan has already cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion and could go as high as $4.4 trillion before it’s all over. At least $31 billion (and as much as $60 billion or more) of that $2 trillion was lost to waste and fraud by military contractors, who do everything from janitorial and food service work to construction, security and intelligence—jobs that used to be handled by the military. That translates to a loss of $12 million a day since the U.S. first invaded Afghanistan. To put it another way, the government is spending more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. (Click HERE for article)
DHS could seize networks under new cyber law?
Shane McGlaun – (TG Daily) – January 16, 2012 – A revised draft version of a circulating cyber security bill could grant the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wide-reaching powers if the legislation is ultimately approved.
Former staff director for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Bob Dix – who is now a VP at Juniper Networks – says he fears one specific section of the bill which could theoretically allow the DHS to take “any lawful action” against a contractor if its systems are under attack.
Meaning, the DHS would be granted permission take over the entire network of a civilian contractor – and not just sectors related to a particular government contract.
“There’s some concern about what would be the criteria about that and how it would be the government has the ability under a provision of lawful action to take over a system used by an agency even if it’s owned by a contractor,” Dix told FederalNewsRadio.
“I am worried about the notion that suggests the government would have the authority under law to be able to take over systems of contractors if they view them as having vulnerabilities even if only a small percentage of that is government utilization.”?? (Click HERE for article)
Defense contracts don’t always add up
Robert McCabe – (The Virginian-Pilot) – January 16, 2012 – It sounded like a windfall.
In January 2008, Virginia Beach-based ADS Tactical Inc. announced it had won defense contracts worth up to $4 billion to provide firefighting and emergency equipment to military installations across the country.
“This contract will double the size of our company in the next two years and allow us to greatly expand our employee base in the Virginia Beach area,” Luke Hillier, the company’s CEO, said at the time.
So far, however, the reality has been much more modest.
As of Dec. 16, the contracts had generated $177 million in business for ADS.
How can the government set a contract ceiling apparently so out of whack with the business generated? (Click HERE for article)
Mabey & Johnson Holders to Pay Back Dividends Over Kickbacks Paid in Iraq
Aoife White – (Bloomberg) - January 13, 2012 – Mabey & Johnson Ltd.’s owner was ordered by a U.K. court to pay 131,201 pounds ($201,370) in dividends gained after the bridge builder paid kickbacks to win contracts from Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government.
Mabey Engineering Holdings Ltd. will repay “sums it received through share dividends derived from contracts won through unlawful conduct,” the Serious Fraud Office said in an e-mailed statement.
Two former directors of the closely held U.K. construction company were found guilty last year of paying more than 420,000 euros ($538,600) to Iraq to win contracts, in violation of United Nations sanctions against the country. (Click HERE for article)
Spanish judge reopens Guantanamo torture probe
Carol Rosenberg – (McClatchy Newspapers) – January 13, 2012 – A Spanish judge on Friday re-launched an investigation into the alleged torture of detainees held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, one day after a British authorities launched a probe into CIA renditions to Libya.
The twin developments demonstrated that while the Obama administration has stuck to its promise not to investigate whether Bush administration officials acted illegally by authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques, other countries are still interested in determining whether Bush-era anti-terror practices violated international law.
In Madrid, Judge Pablo Rafael Ruz Gutierrez handed down a 19-page decision Friday in which he said he would seek additional information — medical data, a translation of a Human Rights Watch report, elaboration on material made public by WikiLeaks, and testimony from three senior U.S. military officers who served at Guantanamo — in the case of four released Guantanamo captives who allege they were humiliated and subjected to torture while in U.S. custody.
Ruz said, however, that it would be premature to notify the former U.S. officials named in the former detainees’ complaint that they are under investigation. Those officials include former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and two former Guantanamo commanders, retired Marine Maj. Gen. Michael Lehnert and retired Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller. (Click HERE for article)
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