DTN News: U.S. Department of Defense Contracts Dated May 2, 2012

Asian Defense News: DTN News: U.S. Department of Defense Contracts Dated May 2, 2012

 Source: U.S. DoD issued No. 341-12 May 2, 2012

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - May 2, 2012: U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) Contracts issued  May 2, 2012   are undermentioned;

CONTRACTS

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

            Grove U.S., Shady Grove, Pa., was awarded a fixed-price with economic price adjustment contract with a maximum $327,500,000 for procurement of commercial type cranes.  There are no other locations of performance.  Using services are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and federal civilian agencies.  There were seven proposals with seven responses.  Type of appropriation is fiscal 2012 through 2017 Defense Working Capital Funds.  The date of performance completion is May 2, 2017.  The Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pa., is the contracting activity (SPM8EC-12-D-0007).

NAVY

            M.C. Dean, Inc., Dulles, Va. (N65236-12-D-4811); L-3 Services, Inc., Global Security & Engineering Solutions, Chantilly, Va. (N65236-12-D-4812); Science Applications International Corp., McLean, Va. (N65236-12-D-4813); BAE Systems Technology Solutions and Services, Inc., Rockville, Md. (N65236-12-D-4814); and Honeywell Technology Solutions, Inc., Columbia, Md. (N65236-12-D-4815), are each being awarded an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee with firm-fixed price provisions, performance-based multiple award contracts to provide infrastructure protection solutions, to include engineering and life-cycle support for five program areas:  electronic security systems; public safety to include emergency management and law enforcement technology support; enterprise systems engineering; information assurance; and engineering network system.  M.C. Dean is being awarded $41,313,451; L-3 Services, $38,980,304; Science Applications International Corp., $39,800,740; BAE Systems Technology Solutions and Services, $40,963,239; and Honeywell Technology Solutions, $43,192,864.  These contracts include options, which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of the contracts to an estimated $228,700,000.  Work will be performed in Charleston, S.C., and is expected to be completed by May 2013.  If all options are exercised, work could continue until May 2017.  Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  This contract was competitively procured by full and open competition via the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center e-Commerce Central website and the Federal Business Opportunities website, with nine offers received.  Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic, Charleston, S.C., is the contracting activity.

            Hensel Phelps Construction Co., Chantilly, Va., is being awarded a $56,954,300 firm-fixed-price contract for the design and construction of four new facilities for The Basic School Student Officer Quarters, Phase 5 and Phase 6 at Marine Corps Base Quantico.  All four facilities will include the following:  design and construction of a new multi-story facility.  Facilities will support billeting for 250 or fewer Marine officers undergoing initial training at The Basic School.  Each facility shall be handicap accessible and provide rooms in either a modified 2+0 configuration or 1+1E configuration (250 rooms maximum/125 modules maximum), with semi-private bathrooms and walk in closets.  The contract also contains four unexercised options, which, if exercised, would increase cumulative contract value to $116,289,000.  Work will be performed in Quantico, Va., and is expected to be completed by April 2016.  Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with 28 proposals received.  The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Washington, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N40080-12-C-0002).

            Data Link Solutions, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is being awarded $9,387,393 for firm-fixed-price delivery order under a previously awarded contract (N00039-10-D-0031) for the Multifunctional Information Distribution System Low Volume Terminals (MIDS LVT) for Foreign Military Sales requirements.  MIDS LVT provides secure, high capacity, jam resistant, digital data and voice communications capability for Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Army, and Foreign Military Sales platforms. This delivery order is for the government of Taiwan (100 percent) under the Foreign Military Sales Program.  Work will be performed in Wayne, N.J. (50 percent), and Cedar Rapids, Iowa (50 percent), and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2014.  Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  This contract was competitively procured via the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) E-commerce website, with two offers received.  The synopsis was released via the Federal Business Opportunities website.  The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, Calif., is the contracting activity.

            CORRECTION:  Contract awarded April 19 to DRS Technical Services, Inc., Herndon, Va. (N65236-12-D-4112), should have the estimated work percentages as Afghanistan (50 percent), Middle East (30 percent), and Stuttgart, Germany (20 percent).

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources U.S. DoD issued No. 341-12 May 2, 2012
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*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
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DTN News - OBAMA IN AFGHANISTAN: Obama’s Afghanistan Plan - Echoes of Vietnam In The U.S. Exit Strategy

Asian Defense News: DTN News - OBAMA IN AFGHANISTAN: Obama’s Afghanistan Plan - Echoes of Vietnam In The U.S. Exit Strategy
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Tony Karon - Time (Blog)
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - May 2, 2012: To understand the historical significance of President Barack Obama’s visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday, imagine that President Richard Nixon had, in the spring of 1972, flown to Saigon to signal American voters that the Vietnam war was coming to an end — and to ink a deal with President Nguyen Van Thieu codifying a long-term U.S. relationship with the Republic of South Vietnam, which would shortly be left responsible for its own security. 

“Today, I signed a historic agreement between the United States and Afghanistan that defines a new kind of relationship between our countries – a future in which Afghans are responsible for the security of their nation, and we build an equal partnership between two sovereign states; a future in which the war ends, and a new chapter begins,” Obama said Tuesday.  Nixon might have said something similar on that imaginary 1972 visit. Except, of course, everyone knew that Vietnam’s future would not be defined by an agreement between Washington and Thieu, as much as by the one signed in Paris, two months after Nixon’s reelection, between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, representing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (a.k.a. “North Vietnam”). Even that deal collapsed, of course, with the DRV and its supporters in the south finishing off the Thieu regime 19 months after U.S. troops withdrew.

Any deal between Presidents Obama and Karzai premised on the ability of the current political order in Kabul to protect itself independently of foreign troops is hardly likely to be the last word, pleasing as the spectacle may be for presidential campaign purposes. The key — but by no means the only — conversation shaping Afghanistan’s future will be the one conducted on the battlefield, and at the negotiating table, between the U.S., its Afghan interlocutors and the Taliban. That point seemed to be underscored by a Taliban car bomb attack near U.S. bases in Kabul just hours after Obama’s departure, which served as a counterpoint to the President’s insistence in his speech that the insurgents’ momentum has been broken. 

Sure, the U.S. has made important tactical gains against the Taliban in designated operational areas in southwestern Afghanistan, but tactical gains in an expeditionary counterinsurgency war tend to be just that; the insurgents know that, as Henry Kissinger famously put it, guerrilla armies win by not losing. They know that the civilian population has little faith in Western forces or in the government those forces protect, and they know the U.S. and its allies are seeking an expeditious exit from Afghanistan. The brutal truth of the Afghanistan equation is that time is still on the side of the Taliban.

The U.S. plans to drawn down troop levels from the current 90,000 to less than 20,000 by the end of 2014, while helping Afghan security forces “surge” to an anticipated 352,000 troops this year. The new agreements seemed to signal a ten-year commitment to maintain an unspecified number of troops for training, intelligence and logistics purposes, and to conduct operations against al-Qaeda. (More importantly, the U.S., as well as other NATO countries, will commit later this month to a decade-long financial package to the government in Kabul worth over $4 billion a year, a sum some say Karzai considers insufficient.)

“We will not build permanent bases in this country, nor will we be patrolling in cities and mountains,” Obama said. “That will be the job of the Afghan people.” But so narrow is the political base of the Karzai regime, which was elected by a small minority of Afghans and whose corruption is endemic, that its ability to lead a credible counterinsurgency fight against the Taliban remains seriously in doubt. The problem is not simply that the Afghan forces lack sufficient training, or that the Afghan government can’t afford to pay for the indigenous army that NATO has created to keep it alive; the problem is fundamentally one of motivation. How many Afghan troops are really ready to fight and die to keep President Karzai in power? One troubling indicator might be the by-now routine incidence of Afghan friendlies turning their weapons on their U.S. and other Western mentors — an incidence the AP claims the military is systematically underreporting.

President Obama did, of course, acknowledge that negotiations with the insurgency were underway. “My Administration has been in direct discussions with the Taliban,” he said. “We have made it clear they can be part of this future if they break with al-Qaida, renounce violence and abide by Afghan laws.” The Taliban may negotiate, and they may not — for a range of reasons ranging from mistrust of the U.S. to the fact that they feel the wind at their backs and because they know the Americans will leave, and also because the Taliban is no longer a single hierarchical entity, but a series of networks, with many of the younger commanders who have replaced those killed by U.S. forces in recent years adopting an even more militant and intractable position. The longer the fighting rages on, analysts of the Taliban warn, the less likely it becomes that those more inclined to negotiate a compromise are able to prevail in the movement’s internal debates over those who believe they will win a bigger victory by fighting on.

Still, even if the Taliban was willing to negotiate a political settlement, it’s a relative certainty that the insurgents won’t accept the terms laid down by President Obama: Even if the Taliban was willing to commit to preventing Afghan territory being used to stage international terror attacks, it’s unlikely to accept Afghan laws and a constitution adopted on the back of a Western invasion. Afghanistan had been engaged in a civil war for a decade before the U.S.-led invasion prompted by the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion didn’t change that; it simply tipped the balance in that civil war against the Pakistan-backed and predominantly Pashtun Taliban and in favor of the Northern Alliance, dominated by ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, and backed by India, Iran and Russia. It is the Northern Alliance that forms the basis of the current order in Kabul, but take Western troops out of the equation, and the equation changes. The Taliban would only be likely to accept the Karzai order in Kabul if it had lost the war; right now, that’s not happening, meaning that a political solution is unlikely without a substantial renegotiation of the distribution of power. The likelihood that the Taliban will reconcile itself to a lesser role in the Karzai order is about as remote as those of the North Vietnamese being willing to accept Thieu’s authority.

Nor is it simply a case of Karzai reaching an accommodation with the Taliban: Key elements in the Northern Alliance are deeply mistrustful of any deals with the Taliban, and mistrust Karzai — and what they see as his effort to juggle the interests of competing warlords. His regime is brittle, at best, and could easily collapse — particularly because 2014 is also the year in which his tenure expires

Then again, right now the insurgents may be more likely to wait out 2014 and test the proposition that the Karzai regime will be able to defend itself without U.S. forces making the decisive difference — just like the Vietcong did in the period between the Paris agreement and the fall of Saigon.

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*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Tony Karon - Time (Blog)
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS 

DTN News: U.S. Department of Defense Contracts Dated May 1, 2012

Asian Defense News: DTN News: U.S. Department of Defense Contracts Dated May 1, 2012

 Source: U.S. DoD issued No. 336-12 May 1, 2012

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - May 1, 2012: U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) Contracts issued  May 1, 2012   are undermentioned;

CONTRACTS

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

            Pacific Coast Fruit Co., Portland, Ore.*, was awarded a fixed-price with economic price adjustment contract with a maximum $37,163,979 for fresh fruit and vegetable support.  Other location of performance is Washington.  Using services are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Department of Agriculture and Indian Reservations.  There were six proposals with three responses.  Type of appropriation is fiscal 2012 Defense Working Capital Funds.  The date of performance completion is May 2017.  The Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pa., is the contracting activity (SPM300-12-D-P132).

            Delaware Storage and Pipeline Co., Nashua, N.H.*, was awarded a firm-fixed-price contract with a minimum $12,323,292 for a commercial contractor owned, contractor operated fuel storage terminal and services to receive, store, and ship fuel.  Using service is Air Force.  There were four proposals with one response.  Type of appropriation is fiscal 2012-2017 Defense Working Capital Funds.  The date of performance completion is March 16, 2017.  The Defense Logistics Agency Energy, Fort Belvoir, Va., is the contracting activity (SP0600-11-R-0513).

NAVY

            Martin Baker Aircraft Co., Ltd., Higher Denham, Near Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, is being awarded a $21,989,271 firm-fixed-price contract for the procurement of 88 Navy aircrew common ejection seats for F/A-18 series and EA-18G aircraft for the Navy and the government of Kuwait (12 F/A-18A+; 18 F/A-18C; 22 F/A-18E; 12 F/A-18F; and 24 E/A-18G).  In addition, this contract provides for the procurement of associated hardware, equipment, technical data, and production support services.  Work will be performed in Johnstown, Pa. (60 percent), and Upper Denham, Near Uxbridge, Middlesex, England (40 percent), and is expected to be completed in March 2014.  Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to 10 U.S.C. 2304(c) (1).  This contract combines purchase for the Navy ($21,920,150; 99.69 percent) and, under the Foreign Military Sales Program, the government of Kuwait ($69,121; 0.31 percent).  The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity (N00019-12-C-0066).

            Alliant Tech Systems, Woodland Hills, Calif., is being awarded an $8,817,735 modification to a previously awarded cost-plus-incentive-fee contract (N00019-08-C-0058) for services and supplies in support of the Multi-Stage Supersonic Target Program, including procurement of 16 rocket motors to be used for safety and confidence testing, the material characterization program of R7340 graphite material, and long lead buy of armed firing devices and rocket motor cases for future low rate initial production requirements.  Work will be performed in Woodland Hills, Calif., and is expected to be completed in April 2014.  Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.

WASHINGTON HEADQUARTERS SERVICE

            Washington Metropolitan Area Transit, Washington, D.C., is being awarded a $15,000,000 modification to the firm-fixed-price contract to provide funding for Department of Defense transportation benefits for its employees.  Work will be performed in Washington, D.C., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2016. Washington Headquarters Service is the contracting activity (HQ0034-12-A-001-0002).

*Small business

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources U.S. DoD issued No. 336-12 May 1, 2012
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
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