Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor

Defense Firm Gets No-Bid Bomb Support Contract Amidst Conflict of Interest Claims

Defense manufacturer EDO Corp. is getting a sole-source contract to provide conventional- and nuclear-bomb ejectors to the U.S. Air Force, in spite of revelations that one of its board members simultaneously led a Pentagon-supported think-tank which consulted the Dept. of Defense on the procurement of the F-22 Raptor program -- a multibillion-dollar aerospace project for which EDO is a subcontractor. While the Washington Post today reported the imminent resignation of Retired Admiral Dennis C. Blair -- who is both EDO Corp. president and board member of the DoD-funded Institue for Defense Analysis -- The Peacock Report has discovered that the Air Force Material Command plans to award the noncompetitive contract to EDO for the bomb-ejector racks. The potential value of the contract was not disclosed.

While the conflict of interest allegations have begun to draw media and congressional attention in the U.S., an EDO affiliate in the U.K. separately has come under fire from pro-Palestinian British activists for providing the Israeli Defense Forces with technologies that they claim are "likely" being used to cause the death of civilians in Gaza, the BBC reported.

Nuke Lab Privatization Moving Forward

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is one step closer to handing over operation and management of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to private contractors. According to a recently revised Request for Proposals (RFP), potential bidders on the project have been meeting with the Dept. of Energy (DOE) over the past two months to discuss this voluntary surrender of control. Despite the eventual privatization of this San Francisco Bay Area facility -- which contains a nuclear weapons stockpile as well as a nuclear bomb-development and R&D complex -- contracts will continue to cost U.S. taxpayers $1.2 billion annually, not including a DOE-estimated $500 million in "reimbursable worK" that the selected prime contractor may conduct yearly.

Socks and Rockets

TPR's sister site, Exhortations to the Oblivious, has a plan once and for all to help Iraq to re-occupy Iraq.

Sock it to 'em, King George.

Click here to find out more.

Sock It To Me, Georgie-Poo

In order to help the Iraqis to re-occupy their country, President Bush needs to arrange the shipment of the following police equipment:

-- 49,963 black plastic whistles;

-- 70,780 pairs of boot socks, size small;

-- 155,208 pairs of boot socks, size medium;

-- 70,870 pairs of boot socks, size large;

-- 52,405 pairs of boot socks, size extra-large;

-- 8,804 handheld wand-style metal detectors;

-- 454 searchlights, each with a 2,000,000-candlepower minimum;

-- 2,282 vehicle towing straps,

AND, while we're at it:

-- 339,763 Glock 9mm pistol magazines, containing 15-rounds each.

Oh, never mind. Exhortations to the Oblivious has belatedly discovered that the U.S. Army on Monday (July 24) already began coordinating the procurement and delivery of these specific items. Our apologies for this oversight.

Although it's no excuse, Exhortations founder Steve Peacock this week turned 42, and he has been busy playing the Harp rather than keep an eye on how the federal government is enabling contractors to loot the U.S. Treasury. He is truly sorry.

Enemies At Home

Perhaps I should have titled this commentary "Thieves At Home," in Commemoration of the Piscataway (NJ) Township Council, which has successfully stolen a farm from a family that lived on the property for nearly a century. Let it be known to the world that Piscataway Mayor Brian C. Wahler and his Council co-conspirators, along with his criminal associates at the NJ Supreme Court, have perpetrated the theft of the Halper Family Farm. Hiding under the fraudulent, un-American shield of Eminent Domain, Piscataway has robbed the Halpers of their heritage propertym and the courts are complicit in this egregious act of aggression against the Halpers.

"This is America, and we are being treated like enemies for wanting to keep our home," Clara Halper was quoted telling the Asbury Park Press in a July 22 article. "Where is the justice? The township is just a bunch of cowards."

The Peacock Report agrees, and is urging all citizens to contact Mayor Wahler and express their disgust with this horrendous abuse of governmental authority. Wahler can be reached by phone at 732-699-9225, and in the alternative can be contacted via the U.S. Postal Service via a letter to 455 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854. Speak your mind, but please be civil.

Funding For U.S.-Led Global Anticorruption Project Creeps Closer to a Billion

Total funding for a five-year anti-corruption initiative led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) this past week jumped to $750,000,000, a quarter-billion-dollar increase over initial USAID estimates. The Peacock Report initially broke the story on the "International Governmental Integrity & Anticorruption Technical Assistance Services" initiative back in March 2006, when USAID first reached out to potential contractors capable of administering the proposed worldwide program on its behalf. TPR has now discovered that USAID on July 20 stepped up its planned investment into the betterment of humanity, for which it is willing to tap into the reservoir of honesty, integrity, and fairness that overflows Pennsylvania Avenue from Capitol Hill to the White House.

USAID also changed the name of the program, reflecting its increased eagerness to show other nations that nobody does it better than the Good Ol' USA: "E.N.G.A.G.E." (Encouraging Global Anticorruption and Good Governance Efforts).

Instead of reiterating TPR's views on the utter hypocrisy and waste that this endeavor represents, just read the original report, U.S. To Spend Half-Billion to Fight Corruption. The latest development on this front is simply more of the same delusional nonsense coming out of Washington, D.C., where most policymakers remain convinced that the U.S. is a shining beacon of light for all nations to follow.

Some of us know better, and are willing to admit it.

GWOT... Milked?

War is a racket, as the title of USMC Major General Smedley Butler's historic antiwar treatise proclaimed decades ago. Similarly, a close look at U.S. Commerce Department efforts to steer contracts to U.S.-based firms to rebuild of Afghanistan's Kandahar Airport is but one indicator that the racket of war -- embodied in the so-called Global War on Terror (GWOT) -- continues in full force.

"It always has been [a racket]," Butler wrote. "It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

The Peacock Report this week discovered that Commerce's Bureau of Industry & Security (BIS), on behalf of the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency (NAMSA), is playing gatekeeper for the latest stage of this reconstruction effort. According to a July 18 "presolicitation notice" that TPR obtained during a routine search of the FedBizOpps database, BIS is the primary arbiter of which construction and engineering firms get their foot in the door for a potential piece of the Kandahar pie, the estimated value of which "will not be disclosed at this time."

The rebuilding of Kandahar Airport, which was destroyed during battles between coalition forces and the Taliban in post-9/11 conflict, solely will involve firms that, at a minimum, maintain existing facilities in the U.S. Bids from non-U.S. companies headquartered in NATO member nations are permitted under Commerce's discretion, so long as those companies already have an established presence in the homeland -- the U.S. homeland, that is.

Except for firms already cleared and listed in what is known as the NAMSA Source File, "additional firms must be introduced by their National Delegations with the required Declaration of Eligibility (DOE)," the document says. Once approved, Commerce then forwards the eligibility declaration to the U.S. Embassy, "which in turn forwards it to the Host Nation."

The Host Nation, by the way, is not Afghanistan, in the context of this procurement. The Host Nation, in only a technical, contractual sense of the phrase, is NATO's NAMSA, which has surrendered oversight of this project segment to the U.S. Commerce Dept.

All NATO member nations individually designate one of their government agencies as a national representative in NATO, specific to pursuing contracting opportunities for their respective industry sectors. But as the U.S. provides 25% of the financial backing for the NATO Security Investment Program (NSIP) -- under which the Kandahar project will be carried out -- it is leveraging this position as a means for funneling that "investment" back to U.S. businesses.

Not only are Afghanistan firms hypothetically barred from getting involved in the rebuilding of Kandahar Airport, the infrastructure initiative isn't at all geared toward Afghanistan's economic recovery. The endeavor, which seeks to "design, build and commission aircraft operating facilities, maintenance facilities and other airfield related facilities," is for the express benefit of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force.

The U.S. Commerce Dept. no doubt would view its role in terms of fulfilling its executive-branch mission "to foster, serve, and promote the Nation’s economic development and technological advancement." Indeed, Commerce is clearly helping U.S. industry -- helping it to milk the GWOT racket, cloaked under the guise of patriotism and free trade.

"A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people," Maj. Gen. Butler wrote. "Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Ironically, the Commerce Dept. posted its presolicitation notice for the Afghanistan project the same day that the General Accountability Office (GAO) -- the nonpartisan investigative and auditing arm of Congress -- warned in a report that "neither DOD nor the Congress reliably know how much" the [GWOT] is costing U.S. taxpayers.

Equally uncertain is the extent that these unknown costs may threaten the future financial stability of the U.S., or its ability to take care of veterans maimed or injured during GWOT activities, according to GAO.

The July 18 GAO report, Global War on Terrorism: Observations on Funding, Costs, and Future Commitment, asserts that the federal government is unable to provide evidence of how it's using congressionally appropriated GWOT money, nor is the Pentagon able or willing to provide "historical data useful in considering future funding needs." Consequently, "future cost variables" for GWOT activities, including efforts by U.S. government agencies to help form governments, to build "capable and loyal security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and meet the healthcare needs of veterans, including providing future disability payments and medical services," are potentially jeopardized.

As Hezbollah Rains Rockets on Israel, DoD Steps Up Plans to Upgrade Israeli Air Force Bases

The U.S. Dept. of Defense this past week elevated its plans to help modernize several Israeli Air Force bases, where the construction of new facilities and the expansion of runways and other aerospace infrastructure will accommodate Israel’s growing inventory of fighter jets. This heightening of Foreign Military Sales (FMS) activity comes at a time when Hezbollah has stepped up rocket attacks against Israel, leading to the subsequent unleashing of Israeli retaliatory strikes against Lebanon, the staging ground of the Hezbollah assault.

According to contracting document that TPR has obtained, the project -- known as SUFA-4, in reference to the Lockheed Martin-produced Sufa ("Storm") and Suefa ("Thunderstorm") F-16I jets -- initially entailed a projected $10 million infrastructure investment into Ramon Air Force Base (AFB), (about 50 kilometers south of Beer-Sheba), Palmachim AFB (15 km south of Tel-Aviv) and Hazerim AFB (5 km west of Beer-Sheba). DoD also planned to facilitate a separate $10 million package for Nevatim AFB, located about 25 km east of Beer-Sheba.

TPR has learned that the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers on July 13 added an additional endeavor to the SUFA 4 project, namely the construction of laboratories and "clean rooms," which typically are used for microelectronics production and maintenance, within an unidentified, 10-story facility in Givayatim, Israel. The addition of this segment increased the projected total of SUFA-4 to $25 million, not including the $10 million upgrade at Nevatim AFB.

Specific to the jets that will be housed in and deployed from these locations, the first of the aircraft had been slated for delivery to Israel in February 2004, according to GlobalSecurity.org. The site also said that three squadrons of the aircraft were scheduled to be operational in 2008.

"It appears that deliveries are taking place at the rate of two aircraft per month, suggesting a force of about 20 aircraft by the end of 2004 and nearly 50 by late 2005," Global Security.org reported. "The first unit to operate the F-16I was the Negev Squadron, which was reformed at Ramon on July 27, 2003, to operate the Suefa. The next unit to reequip with the Suefa will be the Orange Tail Knights Squadron, also at Ramon, followed by the Bat Squadron. With the additional 102 new F-16Is, Israel will operate a total of 362 F-16s - the largest fleet of F-16s in the world outside of the United States Air Force."

Contractor Gets Millions for Radio, TV, Leaflet PSYOPS Technology Project

A $100 million contract to support psychological operations (PSYOPS) that U.S. Special Forces carry out internationally via aerial leafleting and radio and TV broadcasts has been awarded to CACI International, a Virginia-based vendor for Defense and Homeland Security IT services. CACI will provide up to four years of PSYOPS technology- and other electronic systems-assistance to the U.S. Navy Air Warfare Center, whose Special Communications Requirements (SCR) Division is tasked with designing and maintaining federal systems for C4ISR – command, control, computers, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Although the Navy and the Pentagon publicly earlier this week began spinning the award by emphasizing the vague provision of C4ISR services to the military, a closer inspection of related contracting documents reveals an expanded list of possible recipients of the SCR unit’s work, including the White House Communications Agency, the FBI, and "other federal agencies" that the documents did not identify.

The bulk of the direct propaganda segment of the contract indeed appears to center upon the Special Operations Command of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, respectively, for whom CACI would assist in the use of what are known as the Special Operations Media System Broadcast (SOMSB) and the Fly Away Broadcast System (FABS). The contract, however, is not exclusively for those purposes, as it also entails the deployment of digital network technologies, military and commercial satellite communications, and encryption and IT security devices -- goods and services that CACI feasibly could provide to any of the above-named Naval clients. Although the documents do not elaborate on what CACI will offer to the "other" agencies, they point out that systems and sub-systems under the contract will be used at "locations or platforms including shipboard, aircraft/airborne, weapon systems, on small crafts, boats, shelters or vehicles."

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New DHS Project Seeks To Create Border Surveillance Airships is Steve Peacock's latest contribution to The Narcosphere.

A collection of over one-hundred previous pieces that Peacock has written on U.S. "drug war" and economic development policy can be found in his Narcosphere "reporter's notebook," Follow the Money: Bird's Eye View.