8 février 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Terrestre
By: Joe Gould and Aaron Mehta
Updated 2/5/2021 at 11:50 am EST to clarify status of the two arms sales
WASHINGTON —The Biden administration has paused indefinitely two precision guided munition sales to Saudi Arabia, worth as much as $760 million, as part of a new policy aimed at curtailing violence in Yemen, Defense News has learned.
However, that policy, announced Thursday by President Joe Biden, left open the possibility for future sales that are considered vital for Saudi Arabia's national defense, a fine line that would mean some munitions sales will continue.
“We are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales,” Biden said during a speech at the State Department. “At the same time, Saudi Arabia faces missile attacks, UAV strikes, and other threats from Iranian-supplied forces in multiple countries. We're going to continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people. "
The two deals include a foreign military sales case for 3,000 Boeing-made GBU-39 small diameter bombs, which was cleared by the State Department in late December with an estimated price tag of $290 million, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The second is a direct commercial sale for Raytheon Technologies munitions, likely the reported $478 million sale of 7,000 Paveway IV smart bombs.
Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes foreshadowed the move in a Jan. 26 investor call, when he said the company was backing off the sale of an “offensive weapon system” to an unnamed middle eastern customer because it did not believe a license would be granted by the new administration.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It is possible that further Saudi weapon sales may be paused or outright cancelled in the future, as the Biden administration has announced a wide-ranging review of weapon sales cleared by the Trump administration. According to a White House spokesperson, arms sales to Saudi Arabia will go back to the traditional arms sale oversight process, after the Trump administration pushed multiple weapon sales through over objections by Congress.
“All arms sales to Saudi Arabia will return to standard procedures and orders including with appropriate legal reviews at the State Department,” the spokesperson said. “We have reestablished an interagency process for working through the details of individual cases, led by the White House and with all relevant agencies at the table, bringing expertise, discipline, and inclusivity back to our policymaking on these issues.”
Added an administration official, speaking on background, “we are ending all American support for offensive operations in Yemen, including relevant arms sales. Importantly, this does not apply to offensive operations against either ISIS or AQAP.
“It does include both materiel and terminating our intelligence sharing arrangement with Saudi Arabia regarding the war in Yemen. You've seen that we have already paused two arms sales with Saudi Arabia to ensure while we examine whether they meet our objectives and policies.”
Since 2015, the Arab Sunni nations of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have led a coalition of states in Yemen against rebel Houthi forces, which are backed by the Shia government of Iran. Aligned with former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Houthis took over Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in September 2014.
The armed conflict in Yemen has resulted in the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, according to Human Rights Watch.
Citing the Yemen Data Project, HRW says that during the Saudi-led air war in Yemen, more than 17,500 civilians have been killed and injured since 2015, and a quarter of all civilians killed in air raids were women and children. More than 20 million people in Yemen are experiencing food insecurity; 10 million of them are at risk of famine.
Howard Altman with Military Times contributed to this report.
18 septembre 2024 | International, Aérospatial
Under the terms of the contract, KBR will continue to actively assist the F-16, A-10 and T-38 System Program Offices on their digital transformation journeys under digital material management initiatives
1 juin 2020 | International, C4ISR
"Once a chip is designed, adding security after the fact or making changes to address newly discovered threats is nearly impossible," explains a DARPA spokesperson. By THERESA HITCHENSon May 29, 2020 at 2:46 PM WASHINGTON: DARPA has launched a four-year project to find ways to design security features into microchips as they are being made to help ensure the future supply chain. While the name of the project is daunting — Automatic Implementation of Secure Silicon (AISS) — and the technical requirements are a serious challenge, the concept is pretty simple. “AISS aims to automate the process of incorporating security into chip designs, making it easier and potentially more cost effective for any organization with even a small design team (start-ups, mid-size companies, etc.) to build security measures into their designs,” a DARPA spokesperson told Breaking D today. “Overall, with AISS DARPA aims to bring greater automation to the chip design process to profoundly decrease the burden of including security measures,” the spokesperson said. The two winning teams, according to a May 27 DARPA press release, are: The two AISS research teams are: Synopsys, Arm, Boeing, Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research at the University of Florida, Texas A&M University, UltraSoC, and the University of California, San Diego Northrop Grumman, IBM, University of Arkansas, and University of Florida “Research and development on the $75 million program was commenced two weeks ago and incremental capabilities are expected to roll out to the chip design community over the next four years,” the spokesperson said in an email. “Our hope is that many of the capabilities will start appearing as features in commercial design automation software before the program completion.” Digital integrated circuits are the engines that drive modern computers, and everyday digital devices such as smart phones. They are critical to the evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT). As such, they increasingly have become a key target of hacking by US adversaries and cyber criminals alike, DARPA explains. “Threats to IC chips are well known, and despite various measures designed to mitigate them, hardware developers have largely been slow to implement security solutions due to limited expertise, high cost and complexity,” the DARPA release says. “Further, when unsecure circuits are used in critical systems, the lack of embedded countermeasures exposes them to exploitation.” Indeed, the Department of Commerce on May 15 took another swipe at Chinese telecoms behemoth Huawei and tightened its earlier efforts to block it from exporting its semiconductors and products to the US and allies. The Trump administration alleges that Huawei's hardware and software, in particular that related to 5G wireless technology, are full of deliberate security holes in order to enable Chinese government spying. The ruling by Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security, which will take effect in September, seeks to prevent companies around the world from using American-made software and machinery develop chips for Huawei or its subsidiary firms. The problem for device-makers, particularly in the IoT world where the market is largely for commercial products (think smart refrigerators), is that fixing potential security holes often isn't seen as worth the time, effort and most importantly, money. “The inclusion of security also often requires certain trade-offs with the typical design objectives, such as size, performance, and power dissipation,” the DARPA spokesperson said. “For example, something like a sprinkler isn't likely to require the highest level of security protections. Investing in security mechanisms that take up a lot of space on the underlying chip, or significantly impact chip performance likely doesn't make sense based on the sprinkler's expected use and application.” And yet, that future IoT sprinkler also will be other IoT devices and computer networks in operation by an individual, a company or a facility, such as a weapons depot. Even more unfortunately, the spokesperson explained, “modern chip design methods are unforgiving – once a chip is designed, adding security after the fact or making changes to address newly discovered threats is nearly impossible.” Thus, the AISS program is aimed at spurring research into two areas that can address four types of microchip vulnerability, the release says: “side channel attacks, hardware Trojans, reverse engineering, and supply chain attacks, such as counterfeiting, recycling, re-marking, cloning, and over-production.” The first area of research will be focusing on “development of a ‘security engine' that combines the latest academic research and commercial technology into an upgradable platform that can be used to defend chips against attacks, and provide an infrastructure to manage these hardened chips as they progress through their lifecycle,” DARPA said. The second area, led by software specialists Synopsys, “involves integrating the security engine technology developed in the first research area into system-on-chip (SOC) platforms in a highly automated way,” the DARPA release said. The Synopsys team also will be working on how to integrate new security designs and manufacturing tools with currently available off-the-shelf products. Nicholas Paraskevopoulous, sector VP for emerging capabilities development at Northrop Grumman, said in a May 27 press release that the firm's “design tools will enable the development of secure and trusted integrated circuits with reduced costs.” Northrop Grumman is involved in the first AISS research area. Synopsis could not be reached for comment by press time. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/darpa-seeks-secure-microchip-supply-chain/
20 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
ARMY Valiant Government Services LLC, Hopkins, Kentucky (W912DY-15-D-0029, P00012); Acepex Management Corp,* Montclair, California (W912DY-15-D-0030, P00015); Emcor Government Services Inc., Arlington, Virginia (W912DY-15-D-0031, P00013); Electronic Metrology Laboratory LLC, Franklin,* Tennessee (W912DY-15-D-0032, P00011); Facility Services Management Inc.,* Clarksville, Tennessee (W912DY-15-D-0033, P00011); J & J Maintenance Inc., Austin, Texas (W912DY-15-D-0034, P00012); Johnson Controls Building Automation Systems LLC, Huntsville, Alabama (W912DY-15-D-0035, P00012); Quality Services International LLC,* San Antonio, Texas (W912DY-15-D-0036, P00011); Sodexo Management Inc., Gaithersburg, Maryland (W912DY-15-D-0037, P00011); and V W International Inc., Alexandria, Virginia (W912DY-15-D-0038, P00011), were awarded $586,000,000 in modifications in support of the presidential national emergency declaration concerning the novel coronavirus disease. The overall ceiling is now $1,667,700,000. Bids were solicited via the internet with 22 received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 11, 2020. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Huntsville, Alabama, is the contracting activity. Golden Max LLC,* Stafford, Texas, was awarded a $37,065,080 firm-fixed-price contract for infusion pump kits for the COVID-19 effort. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of April 19, 2021. U.S. Army Medical Research, Acquisition Activity, Frederick, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W81XWH-20-D-0057). BAE Systems Land & Armaments L.P., Sterling Heights, Michigan, was awarded a $14,069,872 modification (P00087) to contract W56HZV-15-C-A001 for engineering and manufacturing development portion of the armored multi-purpose vehicle. Work will be performed in Sterling Heights, Michigan, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 29, 2021. Fiscal 2019 and 2020 research, development, test and evaluation, Army funds in the amount of $14,069,872 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE Chromalloy Component Services Inc., San Antonio, Texas, has been awarded a $461,562,336 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with one base year and four option periods for the remanufacture of the F108 Module 13/15 low pressure turbine assembly. Work will be performed in San Antonio, Texas, and is expected to be completed by April 16, 2025. This contract is the result of a competitive acquisition with two offers received. Funding will be made available at the issuing of delivery orders against this contract. The type of funding utilized is defense agencies working capital. The Air Force Sustainment Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, is the contracting activity (FA8122-20-D-0002). NAVY Huntington-Ingalls Industries - Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi, is awarded a $107,976,103 cost-plus-award-fee modification to previously-awarded contract N00024-19-C-4313 to exercise options for the accomplishment of the planning yard services for the littoral combat in-service ships. Work will be performed in Hampton, Virginia (50%); Pascagoula, Mississippi (37%); San Diego, California (7%); and Jacksonville, Florida (6%). The requirements under this contract include, but are not limited to: ship installation drawings development; ship change document updates; operating cycle integration program management; work integration package engineering; type commander response; ship configuration logistics support information system support; configuration data management; research engineering and modeling; provisioned items order; cost and feasibility studies; integrated planning yard material support; provisioning technical documentation; naval ships engineering drawing repository system input and data management; interface and coordination with regional maintenance centers and fleet entities; design alteration and modification development; review and tracing; managing related class ship selected record documents; and hull, mechanical and electrical engineering standardization efforts. Work is expected to be complete by April 2021. Fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy); and fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) funding in the amount $18,854,046 are obligated at time of award, and funding in the amount of $1,115,122 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity. J.I. Garcia Construction Inc.,* Fresno, California (N62473-18-D-5817); Patricia I. Romero, doing business as Pacific West Builders,* National City, California (N62473-18-D-5818); Dimensions Construction Inc.,* San Diego, California (N62473-18-D-5819); K.L. House Construction Co. Inc.,* Albuquerque, New Mexico (N62473-18-D-5820); D Square Construction LLC and Au' Authum Ki A JV,* Tucson, Arizona (N62473-18-D-5821); Herman/JCG Co. JV,* Escondido, California (N62473-18-D-5822); and I.E. Pacific Inc.,* Escondido, California (N62473-18-D-5823), are awarded $90,000,000 to increase the aggregate capacity of the previously-awarded suite of firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, multiple award construction contracts. The contracts are for new construction, renovation and the repair of general building construction. All work will be performed at various federal sites within the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Southwest area of operation, including but not limited to: California (90%); Arizona (6%); Nevada (1%); Utah (1%); Colorado (1%); and New Mexico (1%). The contracts are for new construction as well as the renovation and repair of general buildings. The maximum dollar value including the base year and four option years for all seven contracts combined is increased from $240,000,000 to $330,000,000. No funds are being obligated on this award and no funds will expire. Future task orders will be primarily funded by military construction (Navy); operations and maintenance (O&M) (Navy); O&M (Marine Corps); and Navy working capital funds. The original contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website and 24 proposals were received. The NAVFAC Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity. Doyon Project Services LLC,* Federal Way, Washington, is awarded $20,999,877 for a firm-fixed-price task order (N44255-20-F-4154) for the Undersea Vehicle Maintenance Facility, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport, Washington. Work will be performed in Keyport, Washington, and provides for the construction of a single-story high bay undersea vehicle maintenance facility. The facility will include information systems, infrastructure for built-in cranes and fire protection systems, parts storage, explosive service lockers, maintenance areas and personnel support spaces. The task order also contains one unexercised option, which if exercised, would increase cumulative contract value to $21,003,842. Work expected to be complete by April 2022. Fiscal 2020 military construction (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $20,999,877 are obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Three proposals were received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Northwest, Silverdale, Washington, is the contracting activity. Cubic Dense Applications Inc., San Diego, California, is awarded $8,880,166 for a firm-fixed-price and cost-plus fixed-fee contract with options. This procurement of model AN/USQ-167(V) Communications Data Link System (CDLS) for production of five CDLS Tech Refresh (TR) Integrated Antenna Systems (IAS) for Nimitz class aircraft carrier platforms. Work will be performed in San Diego, California. One AN/USQ-167C(V) CDLS-TR IAS consists of two directional/Omni antennas, one Omni only antenna including hardware/software interface and three above and below deck split radios with communications security module. In addition, the contractor will provide and order the engineering services and provisional items required to support installations, repairs and sustainment. Work is expected to be complete by April 2025. The Navy requires hardware and software delivery for installation within 12 months of the contract's award and for additional units, 12 months after options are exercised. This contract includes four one-year options which, if exercised, will bring the cumulative value of this contract to an estimated $8,880,166. If all options are exercised, work may continue through September 2021. Fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $1,229,714 will be obligated at the time of award. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract is awarded as a sole-source under the under the authority of 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1). The Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N00039-20-C-0015). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY General Dynamics Mission Systems Inc., Scottsdale, Arizona, has been awarded a maximum $25,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for Prophet Enhanced system spare parts. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. This is a five-year contract with no option periods. Location of performance is Arizona, with an April 16, 2025, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 Army working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland (SPRBL1-20-D-0021). Hamilton Sundstrand Corp., Windsor Locks, Connecticut, has been awarded a maximum $7,377,840 firm-fixed-price contract for F100/220 aircraft control units. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. This is a one-year contract with no option periods. Location of performance is Connecticut, with a Jan. 31, 2023, performance completion date. Using customers are foreign military sales to Egypt and Taiwan. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 through 2020 Foreign Military Sales funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma (SPRTA1-20-F-0097). DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY Galois Inc., Portland, Oregon, was awarded a $12,752,707 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for a research project under the Securing Information for Encrypted Verification and Evaluation (SIEVE) program. The SIEVE program will use zero knowledge proofs to enable the verification of capabilities relevant to the Department of Defense without revealing the sensitive details associated with those capabilities. Work will be performed in Portland, Oregon, with an expected completion date of May 2024. Fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) funding in the amount of $1,219,023; and fiscal 2020 RDT&E funding in the amount of $1,474,654 are being obligated at time of award. This contract was a competitive acquisition under an open broad agency announcement, and 13 offers were received. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (HR0011-20-C-0085). *Small business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2155142/source/GovDelivery/