WASHINGTON, July 27 (UPI) -- Fiscal shortfalls might force Boeing Co. and two subcontractors to halt work on the Army's Future Combat Systems program.
The Army said Boeing and subcontractors BAE Systems and General Dynamics might be forced to lay off as many as 1,300 employees unless the Senate and House Armed Services Committees approve an immediate $295 million appropriation for the program which has run out of money, GovExec.com reported on July 25.
No date has been given for a possible stop-work order or layoffs.
London-based BAE System's North American division unit and General Dynamics are the primary companies involved in the Army's $164 billion Future Combat Systems program, which is developing eight models of manned tactical and support vehicles.
The Future Combat Systems program is developing new manned and unmanned battle vehicles interlinked through high-speed, digital communications, unmanned drones and new combat radios for new brigade-combat teams lighter than the Army's current units.
A Boeing spokesman said in a written statement that "reports of imminent layoffs on the FCS program due to funding issues are incorrect. It is our understanding that a funding reprogramming request was submitted to the congressional defense committees and is proceeding through approvals. The reprogramming approval needs to occur in a timely fashion, however, to allow the FCS program to continue to execute on plan."
LexisNexis has broadened its information-sharing services for government intelligence and security agencies.
LexisNexis Advanced Government Solutions is a secure research tool for national security use, which provides federal agencies with secure and easily accessible data, which can be accessed through a secure Internet connection or internally via agency systems where LexisNexis data has been integrated into internal data files.
Federal Computer World reported on July 24 that LexisNexis' main business remains its searchable database of 5 billion articles and public and international records. According to LexisNexis Special Services Chief Executive Officer Norm Willox, the idea behind LexisNexis Advanced Government Solutions is to provide the material to the government for intelligence and national security applications, allowing federal agencies to effectively manage the volume and variety of relevant data. Willox said, "The technology makes analysts more efficient and faster at locating the information they need to develop intelligence products ... to detect and defeat threats to national security."
In 2004 Reed Elsevier, the U.K.-based parent company of LexisNexis, bought Seisint, a company specializing in rapid data fusion, to enhance the potential of LexisNexis Advanced Government Solutions. LexisNexis' Advanced Government Solutions Intelligence Analysis Solutions component can rapidly extract critical information from massive databases.
LexisNexis Vice President of Product Management Robert Pinkerton said, "This is an expansion of our business, not a new business plan."
Intelligence Analysis Solutions compiles news, transcripts, scientific journals, public records and Web material, which are then categorized and filtered before being linked to classified files, providing intelligence analysts with a broader context.
North Carolina-based Blackwater USA is one of the most prominent private security firms in Iraq, with over 1,000 employees now there.
Following the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq the Coalition Provisional Authority found a need for private military companies and their missions and quickly diverted millions of dollars from reconstruction to security, opening up a massive new market for private military contractors.
The Virginian-Pilot reported on July 25 that Blackwater USA was one of the first private military contractors in Iraq. Blackwater USA met with Paul Bremer III, who headed the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Blackwater President Gary Jackson said, "Nobody had really figured out exactly how they were going to get him from D.C. and stand him up in Iraq. The Secret Service went over and did an assessment and said, 'You know what? It's much, much more dangerous than any of us believed.' So they came back to us. When there is a crisis they have a tendency to call us first."
In August 2003, Blackwater was awarded a $21 million no-bid contract to guard Bremer, the first of a number of contracts with the U.S. government. According to an online government database, Blackwater USA has won $505 million in federal contracts since 2000, primarily with the State Department.
In June the government estimated that there were at least 180 security companies operating in Iraq with more than 48,000 employees, making Iraq the largest private military deployment in history, giving private contractors to troop ratio of 1-to-3.
