Lend Me Your Ears: US Military Turns to Contractor Linguists

“Lend me your ears”

The US military has come to rely more and more on contractors to provide linguist services to function effectively in non-English speaking regions. The need for these services is particularly acute in the Middle East and Central Asia where US troops are actively engaged. Technically, there are 2 primary types of linguist services: interpreters and translators. Contractors usually offer both services as part of their contracts.

This DID FOCUS free sample covers US military linguist services contracts and key events.

NGC to Support B2IR Biometrics Program, 2012-2015

In September 2012, Northrop Grumman Information Technology Inc. in McLean, VA received an $8.2 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to support the Biometric Identity Intelligence Resource System. Biometrics has found an important but unheralded niche on modern counter-insurgency battlefields, and there are a number of programs underway within the services. It all starts with the ability to match, and disseminate, biometric personal data to known (and especially flagged/ watchlisted) identities.

Work will be performed in Charlottesville, Va., with an estimated completion date of Sept 6/15. Sixteen bids were solicited, with one bid received by US Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) in Charlottesville, VA (W91QUZ-07-D-0005). This order was actually issued under the US Army’s $20 billion ITES-II umbrella contract.

The DIA’s $5.6 Billion SITA-II Umbrella Contract

In July 2012, the “Virginia Contracting Activity” accepted 10 firms into the $5.6 billion “Solutions for Intelligence Analysis II” program. It succeeds the original December 2007 SITA contract, which consolidated over 30 different contracts under 1 umbrella. These “professional support services” include services and technologies around the Pentagon Defense Intelligence Agency’s mission, which includes support on the front lines, for defense planners, and for defense and national security policy makers.

These winners can compete for individual jobs around the globe under a 5-year, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity umbrella contract, which runs until July 15/17. This lets the Pentagon quickly augment, reassign, or wind down individual efforts. Winners included:

Rapid Fire July 3, 2012: Sinkex Abstinence No More

• Poland has ordered another 5 of Airbus Military’s C295 light tactical transports, for an undisclosed price. That will bring its fleet to 16, making Poland the type’s biggest single customer.

• The 3,750t Dutch OPV, HNLMS Holland, is impressing American allies over at Key West, FL, as it begins work in the Caribbean.

• While sailing on its first mission, into the Persian Gulf, USS New York (LPD 21) becomes the 1st American ship of its type to embark an Army AH-64D Apache attack helicopter.

Schrodinger’s Contracts: US Explores Quantum Computing

US ORNL laser test

Readers who follow the tech press may be familiar with the concept of quantum computing. Computers use binary bits: on/off, yes/no, represented by 0 or 1. A quantum bit, or qubit, can be 1, or 0… or both. Whereas 111 = 7 in binary, and each number is a single choice among all the possibilities in the number of binary digits, 3 qubits can hold all 8 possibilities (0-7), which means you can do calculations on all of them at once. The more qubits used, the more computation, so 32 qubits theoretically gets you 2 to the 32nd power computations (about 4.3 billion) at once – much more power than conventional computing, and it keeps on rising exponentially.

It’s worth noting that quantum computing has limits, and areas where it will not be suitable for computing tasks. They are not fully understood yet, but have been shown to exist at the theoretical level. So far, all we can say is that certain kinds of problems will be solved much, much more quickly. The uses of such a system for searching large domains of information, cracking codes, creating codes, or running simulations that include the quantum level (as a number of modern physical and medical science applications do) are clear. As an additional benefit, quantum cryptography methods benefit from quantum principles. Eavesdropping is not only incredibly difficult, it will create noticeable interference.

Various American agencies continue to be interested in the field, which has also begun finding commercial applications.

$480M to GIS As Security Contractors to the USACE in Afghanistan

In October 2011, Global Integrated Security (USA), Inc. in Reston, VA won a 4-year, $480 million firm-fixed-price contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for Reconstruction Security Support Services throughout Afghanistan. Work will be performed in Afghanistan, with an estimated completion date of Oct 19/15. Five bids were solicited, with 5 bids received by the USACE office in Winchester, VA (W912ER-12-D-0001).

Global Integrated Security has performed RSSS work in Afghanistan before. A $34 million task order in December 2009 focused on Kabul and Kandahar, but a March 2010 contract [PDF] from the US Army Corps of Engineers saw them expand those services to encompass a National Operations Center providing intelligence and analysis, reconnaissance teams, interpreters, aviation services throughout Afghanistan; and “mobile security support services” to USACE personnel during travel to, and presence at, construction sites.

Request for Proposals Round Up, Mid-August 2011

Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) has recently disclosed the following Requests for Proposals (RFP), modifications and notifications:

• The US Air Force releases a Statement of Work, Questions and Answers and additional documents in relation to the purchase and installation of a Lawful Intercept (LI) capability for the Government of Iraq (GOI). LI will provide the GOI with enhanced communications intelligence to support a range of security operations.

Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle, April/ May 2011

(c) DJ Elliott

DJ Elliott is a retired USN Intelligence Specialist (22 years active duty) who has been analyzing and writing on Iraqi Security Forces developments since 2006. His Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle is an open-source compilation that attempts to map and detail Iraqi units and equipment, as their military branches and internal security forces grow and mature. While “good enough for government use” is not usually uttered as a compliment, US Army TRADOC has maintained permission to use the ISF OOB for their unclassified handouts since 2008.

This compilation is reproduced here with full permission. It offers a set of updates highlighting recent changes in the ISF’s composition and development, followed by the full updated ISF OOBs in PDF format. Reader feedback and tips are encouraged. Recent developments include:

Up to $1.5B to 4 Firms for US SOCOM Battlestaff Support

The US Special Operations Command (US SOCOM) awarded 4 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts for the Global Battlestaff and Program Support Services (GBPS) program. The 4 contracts have a maximum value of $1.5 billion.

Under the GBPS contracts, the contractors will provide personnel, equipment, tools, materials, supervision, and other items necessary to support a broad range of US SOCOM mission areas.

The GBPS contracts are follow-on to the more narrowly focused acquisition, logistics, management, and business operations support (ALMBOS) contracts, which were earlier awarded to Jacobs and Gemini Industries and expired on April 30/10. In response to the GBPS RFP [pdf], Gemini filed a protest with the GAO, but the agency denied the protest (solicitation number: H92222-09-R-0034) on April 29/10.

The winners of the GBPS contracts are:

US Army To Buy Backscatter Trailers to Monitor Checkpoints in Afghanistan

Backscatter Truck Scan

The US Marine Corps has been using them in Afghanistan for years. And now the US Army wants to get its hands on some. Some what? You may ask. Why backscatter van (BV) military trailers, of course.

BV military trailers use backscatter x-ray technology to peer into vehicles and containers that enter and exist military checkpoints. The technology can detect improvised explosive devices (IEDs), people, and plastic weapons, among other things. The backscatter x-ray technology is similar to the full body scanners now being deployed by the US Transportation Security Administration at US airports.

American Science and Engineering (AS&E) in Billerica, MA supplies the US military with both the backscatter van, which houses the technology in an inconspicuous delivery van, and the BV military trailer designed to traverse rugged terrain…