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November 16, 2009
from Crocodyl Website
Contents
SI International/Serco
Author/Researcher
Tim Shorrock
Headquarters
1818 Library Street, Suite 1000 Reston, VA 20190
Principal Agencies
National Security Agency (NSA), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), Office of Naval Intelligence
Air Force Information Warfare Center, Department of Defense
Top Executives
Edward J. Casey, Jr., Chairman and CEO
Harry Gatanas – Senior VP, Defense and Intelligence Group (former NSA director of Acquisitions)
Annual Revenue
$510 million (2006)
Intelligence Percent of Revenue
48 percent
Summary
Ratings
SI International, Inc. of McLean, Va., is a key NSA contractor now owned by Serco Inc. of the UK, the world’s largest outsourcing company. SI runs some of the NSA’s support and management functions. Its niche is advising intelligence and defense agencies on their acquisition and outsourcing strategies. It also helps intelligence agencies as they shift from proprietary “stove-pipes” to integrating their IT systems with sister agencies and the Pentagon’s evolving Global Information Grid. GIG is the Internet-like system that will theoretically link military commanders, warfighters, and national collection agencies into a single classified network. In August 2008, SI was acquired by Serco Inc., which describes itself as a “a leading provider of professional, technology, and management services focused on the federal government.” SI International is now part of Serco’s North American division. See Serco’s press release. SI bought into many of its contracts by acquiring smaller companies holding specialized NSA contracts. Of particular importance was SI’s $30 million acquisition in 2004 of Bridge Technology Corporation, which had extensive contracts with defense intelligence agencies. Bridge “really gave us name-brand recognition within the intelligence community,” S. Bradford “Bud” Antle, SI’s former president and CEO, told investors during a 2006 Washington conference on defense investing sponsored by the Friedman Billings Ramsey investment firm. “The IC wants other players. They get a bit in-bred because they have a set of contractors that are clean with capabilities they’ve known forever.” For that reason, agencies are pleased when they “see an acquisition like us buying Bridge.”
Corporate Information
According to SI’s old website, the company specializes in “mission critical outsourcing.” That means SI International, “is an expert in putting together mission-critical business process outsourcing (BPO) solutions for record management and processing, case management, workflow management, human resource services, and logistics operations. These outsourcing arrangements increase efficiency, productivity and quality of service, lower administrative costs, reduce office supply costs, enhance supervisory oversight over personnel, minimize time spent on unnecessary research and statistical analysis, and enable civilian agency and Department of Defense personnel to take on higher priority assignments. Given today’s global environment, government employees are routinely asked to take on more and more tasks with increasingly finite resources, which makes the need for these BPO arrangements even more acute.”
CorpWatch Analysis
Because of its high-visibility role as an adviser for the NSA, SI has filled its management team and board of directors with former high-ranking intelligence officials.
Harry Gatanas, SI’s executive vice president for strategic programs, oversees the company’s business with the Pentagon and its intelligence agencies and remains with the company as Serco’s Senior Vice President, Defense & Intelligence Group. Gatanas came to SI directly from the NSA, where he was the agency’s senior acquisition executive and the contracting manager for Project Groundbreaker, one of the largest outsourcing projects ever undertaken by a federal government agency. Prior to coming to the NSA, Gatanas spent 30 years in military intelligence, where his duties included managing contracts for the Army.
Recent Contracts/Events
In April 2008, SI announced that it was a member of an SAIC team that won a multi-award, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract supporting the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Under the contract, SAIC wrote in a press release, “SAIC will support the DIA mission with services in areas including foreign cultures, regional dynamics, illicit drugs, infectious disease and health, and emerging and disruptive technologies to provide effective analysis for the Defense Intelligence Enterprise.” SI’s latest contract with the NSA was signed in April 2008, when it won three “Enterprise Program Management” contracts with a potential value of more than $300 million. Under the contracts, SI will help NSA “upgrade its acquisition management services” and “modernize its information technology, systems and programs” (major subcontractors on the project include Booz Allen Hamilton and Lockheed Martin). In 2005, SI signed a three-year contract with the NSA to provide training in financial management, and in 2006 added a five-year $6.9 million “task order” to run the NSA’s human resources “welcome center” in Fort Meade.
SOURCES
Primary sourcing for this profile came from Tim Shorrock, ''Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing'' (Simon & Schuster/2008) and from DIA and company press releases.
Email - Info@si-intl.com
Phone - +1-703.939-6000
Website - http://www.serco-na.com/
Back to Contents Boeing Integrated Defense Systems
Author/Researcher
Tim Shorrock
Headquarters
100 North Riverside, Chicago, Illinois 60606 (Boeing HQ), P. O. Box 516, St. Louis, Missouri 63166 (Integrated Defense Systems)
Principal Agencies
National Security Agency (NSA)
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Top Executives
W. James McNerney, Jr., chairman of the board, president and CEO of The Boeing Company
Jim Albaugh, executive vice president, Boeing; president and CEO, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (member, National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee)
Annual Revenue
$66.4 billion (Boeing corporate)
Intelligence Percent of Revenue
Not Disclosed
Summary
BOEING’S NICHE Boeing Integrated Defense Services (IDS) is the intelligence unit of the Boeing Company. Based in Chicago, Boeing is a $61.5 billion aerospace company with more than 161,000 employees, and makes commercial jetliners and military aircraft, satellites, and advanced information and communications systems. IDS has close ties with the NSA and the intelligence community’s signals intelligence units. It has an important office about a mile from the agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, in an industrial park filled with NSA contractors. Boeing was involved in some of the Bush administration’s most secretive programs: Jeppesen International Trip Planning, a Boeing subsidiary, handled computerized flights plans for the CIA when it kidnapped (rendered) suspected terrorists and flew them to secret prisons around the world. Boeing also has a major stake in domestic intelligence as the prime contractor for the DHS surveillance system, SBInet, which is designed to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border with a “virtual fence” network of surveillance systems and communications towers.
FINANCES
Boeing IDS, with $32.1 billion in revenues, earns slightly more than half of Boeing’s total annual revenues. Its 71,000-person business unit provides solutions “to meet the enduring needs of defense, space, and intelligence customers in the United States and around the world,” according to the company’s website. The division is headquartered in St. Louis, and has “concentrated operations” in Southern California; Seattle; Houston; Philadelphia; Mesa, Arizona; Huntsville, Alabama; the Space Coast of Florida; San Antonio; and Washington, D.C. Corporate Information INTELLIGENCE MISSION According to Boeing’s website, its most important intelligence unit is its Mission System Group. This organization, “provides the subject matter expertise, technical excellence, and operational experience required to lead Boeing's effort to support the horizontal integration of the Intelligence Community (IC). We are organized, not by customer, but by capability to provide the NGA, CIA, DIA and NSA an enterprise level approach to global situational awareness, content management and knowledge capture. Our architectural solutions facilitate the seamless integration of military and intelligence missions by leveraging open standards and commercial technology.” Capabilities include: -
Mission Infrastructure (“providing secure, integrated network solutions that support intelligence and command systems”) -
Intelligence Analysis & Services (“integrated, analytical intelligence support to the warfighter”) -
commercial imagery solutions to “produce, manage and visualize geospatial information.” Key customers of the unit, the company says, include the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. Boeing’s geospatial intelligence offerings are provided through Boeing’s Space and Intelligence Systems unit, which also holds contracts with the NSA. It allows agencies and military units to map global shorelines and create detailed maps of cities and battlefields, complete with digital elevation data that allow users to construct three-dimensional maps. Other agencies are served through Boeing’s Advanced Information Systems (AIS) unit headquartered in Anaheim, California. AIS is part of the company’s Intelligence and Security Systems, the Boeing division, “that is dedicated to providing ground-based and other integrated intelligence and security solutions for a variety of U.S. government customers. More than half of the work performed by AIS supports classified government programs.” In December 2007, Boeing formed a new Intelligence and Security Systems (I&SS) division that appears to combine many of the company’s services for foreign and domestic intelligence. Based in Washington, D.C., I&SS has a workforce of about 2,000 people at nine locations nationwide, and includes four program areas: -
Advanced Information Systems -
Mission Systems -
Security Solutions, which includes SBInet (the electronic wall being built on the US-Mexico border) -
Advanced I&SS According to a company press release, the new division, “enables increased focus on the complex challenges faced by our homeland security and intelligence community customers… I&SS will improve our ability to bring comprehensive, net-enabled capabilities to meet our customers' dynamic requirements."
DOMESTIC SECURITY AIS is also home to Boeing’s SBINet contract for the US government’s Secure Border Initiative. As described by the company, SBI is, “a comprehensive plan by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to gain operational control of the US borders through the integration of increased staffing; interior enforcement; detection technology and infrastructure; and coordination on federal, state, local, and international levels.” Boeing’s contribution, through a contract worth at least $2.5 billion, is SBINet, “a program focused on transforming border control through technology and infrastructure. SBINet will provide frontline personnel advantages in securing the nation's land borders through the most effective integration of current and next generation technology, infrastructure, staffing, and response platforms.” SBINet is managed and executed by the US Customs and Border Protection agency and contracted out to the Boeing team, which includes key intelligence contractors DRS Technologies, L-3 Communications, Unisys Global Public Sector, and USIS (formerly a Carlyle Group company). The Boeing consortium, the company says, “will detect, monitor, and classify potential and actual crossers [of the border]. At that point, the system will enable sector command centers to dispatch the right agents and resources to respond to the scene.” The equipment will include ground-based and tower-mounted sensors, cameras and radars; fixed and mobile telecommunications systems; ground-penetrating detecting systems; command and control center equipment; and information database and intelligence analysis systems.
CorpWatch Analysis SUMMARY Boeing’s intelligence division, while little known outside of the military establishment, plays a critical role in the so-called war on terror. In 2006, IDS began testing for its defense and intelligence clients a new product that downloads signals and imagery from military satellites and sends the data instantly to analysts in ground stations. “For the first time,” said Boeing, “signal intelligence receivers proved that they could automatically identify the target -- a mock terrorist -- and trigger airborne surveillance assets to track the target on the ground, while capturing full-motion imagery and broadcasting it instantly to analysts several hundred miles away.” [1] The system will eventually become part of the US Army’s array of high-tech weaponry. One of IDS’s most important units is its Mission Systems group, which supports the national collection agencies “with solutions that allow them to acquire, manage, visualize and communicate intelligence from multiple sources.”
CIA OPERATIONS
A Boeing subsidiary played a key role in the secret “extraordinary rendition” program that sent many terrorist suspects to CIA-operated interrogation cells outside the United States. According to New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer, Jeppesen International Trip Planning, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Boeing, handled, “many of the logistical and navigational details for these trips, including flight plans, clearance to fly over other countries, hotel reservations, and ground-crew arrangements.” [2] In her 2008 book The Dark Side (Doubleday/2008), Mayer added details. Quoting Sean Belcher, a former Jeppesen employee, she reported that, “while the Bush administration was insisting that it did not render suspects to be tortured, executives at Jeppesen had no such illusions. [Belcher] described a meeting in which one of his bosses, Bob Overby, the managing director of Jeppesen International Trip Planning, said, ‘We do all of the extraordinary-rendition flights – you know, the torture flights. Let’s face it, some of these flights end up that way.’” (Mayer, page 129). Jeppesen is also involved as a contractor in geospatial intelligence. A Boeing handout at a 2007 intelligence symposium in San Antonio lists “Jeppesen Government and Military Services” as one of four subsidiaries of Boeing’s Space and Intelligence Systems unit, which provides “prime contractor support to government customers that require diverse geospatial intelligence services.” That designation could include the CIA as well as the NGA and other Pentagon agencies. Jeppesen and the other subsidiaries, Boeing says, work “in specialized organizations with broad resources to meet the time-critical requirements of today’s warfighter.”
At GEOINT 2007, Boeing, one of the intelligence community’s biggest suppliers of satellites, displayed its “information sharing environment” software. It is designed to meet the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s new requirements that agencies stop buying “stovepiped” systems that cannot talk to each other and start focusing on products that allow the NGA and other agencies to easily share their classified imagery with the CIA and other sectors of the community. “To ensure freedom in the world, the United States continues to address the challenges introduced by terrorism,” a Boeing handout said. Its new software, the company said, will allow information to be “shared efficiently and uninterrupted across intelligence agencies, first responders, military and world allies.”
Recent Contracts/Events
In April 2008, Boeing and CSC, another major intelligence contractor, joined forced to pursue a multi-billion dollar contract with the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) “to execute the Special Operations Forces' global mission.”
"The combined technical, integration, and sustainment strengths of Boeing and CSC offer the best possible team to support USSOCOM worldwide, and to bring SOFSA new capabilities that offer enhanced performance while establishing cost-saving efficiencies for operations," Jim Sheaffer, president of CSC's North American Public Sector, wrote in a press release.
SOURCES [1] “Boeing Demonstrates Anti-Terrorism Integrated Tactical Solutions,” Boeing company press release, June 22 2006.
[2] Jane Mayer, “The CIA’s Travel Agent,” The New Yorker, October 30, 2006. Email - forrest.s.gossett@boeing.com (Boeing media relations)
Phone - +1-314-363-0650
Website - Boeing Integrated Defense Systems Back to Contents BAE Systems/Global Analysis Unit
Author/Researcher
Tim Shorrock
Headquarters
1601 Research Blvd., Rockville MD 20850
Principal Agencies
Central Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Counter-Terrorism Center
Department of Defense
Top Executives
Walter P. Havenstein, president and CEO
John Gannon, vice president of Global Analysis (former deputy director for Intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency)
Annual Revenue
$28.2 billion (BAE U.S. parent)
Intelligence Percent of Revenue
Not disclosed
Summary
Rankings (BAE Systems Inc.) BAE Systems Inc., is the U.S. subsidiary of the British defense giant BAE. It is the sixth-largest U.S. defense contractor and a major player in the U.S. intelligence market. Its rise was fueled by a string of strategic acquisitions of American companies, the largest of which was United Defense Industries (UDI). BAE bought UDI in 2005 for $4.2 billion from the Carlyle Group, the well-connected Washington-based private equity fund. UDI, which makes the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and other weapons systems used by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, was a huge money-maker for Carlyle, and its acquisition helped catapult BAE into third place in the global defense market, just behind Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
Corporate Information
BAE Systems' website explains how its Global Analysis intelligence unit operates:
“[It] is a leading provider of skilled, fully cleared, and experienced intelligence and geospatial analysts working directly with Government agencies and U.S. military commands to satisfy regular and surge requirements. Policymakers, intelligence officers, war fighters, and law enforcement officers have come increasingly to rely on the sophisticated intelligence analysis provided by Global Analysis to help them understand the threats, risks, and opportunities generated by today’s rapidly evolving international environment. “Along with this on-site support, Global Analysis offers outsourced studies and assessments. Through its own group of ‘in-house’ senior analysts, Global Analysis is prepared to provide the intelligence community, the wider U.S. Government, U.S. military commands, and the U.S. private sector with customized strategic assessments and analysis on political, economic, and security issues. “Our sophisticated, all-source analysis program is led by Dr. John Gannon, vice president of Global Analysis and former deputy director for intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency. Dr. Gannon is ably supported by a range of seasoned senior analysts and managers from the intelligence community as well as by analytic support specialists. …” The unit provides professional and analytic staffing; workforce development; technical and tradecraft training; advanced analytic tools; strategic studies and assessments; design, construction, and management of analytic facilities. BAE Systems has extensive operations throughout the Washington, D.C. area and operates numerous Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIF) for intelligence agencies. These facilities have special windows that prevent outside infiltration of electronic spying devices. According to BAE, “Our newest facility in Herndon, Virginia, known as the Information Analysis Center (IAC) is a state-of-the-art workspace, built to stringent…customer security, communications, and analytic requirements. This facility, which was opened in July, 2005, provides over 150,000 square feet of accredited SCIF space accommodating over 700 personnel. In addition to workspace, BAE Systems provides the IAC with a 24 x 7 cleared armed guard force, and an array of security services, including badging, holding and passing clearances, and escorting.” BAE’s contractor staff at the IAC specialize in counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, counter-proliferation, leadership analysis, electronic warfare, infrastructure vulnerabilities analysis, medical intelligence, underground facilities assessments and open-source intelligence analysis training for the private sector.
CorpWatch Analysis
BAE Systems is one of the prime beneficiaries of an outsourcing agenda under which the U.S. Intelligence Community spent 70 percent of its estimated $60 billion annual budget on contracts with private companies.
BAE’s services to U.S. intelligence - including the CIA and the National Counter-Terrorism Center - are provided through its Global Analysis Business Unit, located in McLean, Va., a stone’s throw from the CIA. The unit is headed by Dr. John Gannon, a 25-year veteran of the CIA who reached the agency’s highest analytical ranks as deputy director of intelligence and chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Today, as a private sector contractor for the Intelligence Community, Gannon manages a staff of more than 800 analysts with security clearances. In 2008 BAE added considerable depth to its intelligence offerings by acquiring MTC Technologies, a Dayton-based supplier of intelligence and technology systems to the NSA and other agencies. It also acquired Detica Group, another British intelligence consulting company that has been making deep inroads into the U.S. defense intelligence market and the CIA.
FOREIGN REQUIREMENTS As a subsidiary of a foreign corporation, BAE Systems Inc. operates under a Special Security Agreement with the US government that requires the company to appoint outside directors who are American citizens to a Government Security Committee. These board members are responsible for overseeing BAE’s compliance with US national security and export regulations and vouch for the company before US officials. According to BAE, “Our long history of successful compliance with the SSA allows BAE Systems to supply products and services to the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community and Homeland Security on some of the Nation’s most sensitive programs.” BAE Systems’ outside directors all have extensive experience inside the American intelligence and national security communities. They include: -
Lee H. Hamilton, former Speaker of the House and co-chair of the 9/11 Commission -
Richard J. Kerr, former deputy director of Central Intelligence -
Gen. Kenneth A. Minihan, former director of the NSA -
Gen. Anthony C. Zinni (USMC, retired), former commander-in-chief U.S. Central Command
BAE SYSTEMS AND THE CIA
BAE’s role in U.S. national security and, in the process, underscores the degree of outsourcing in U.S. intelligence. “The demand for experienced, skilled, and cleared analysts - and for the best systems to manage them - has never been greater across the Intelligence and Defense Communities, in the field and among federal, state and local agencies responsible for national and homeland security,” according to a Global Analysis unit brochure distributed in October at GEOINT 2007, an annual symposium sponsored by the prime contractors for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The mission of the Global Analysis unit, “is to provide policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcement officials with analysts to help them understand the complex intelligence threats they face, and work force management programs to improve the skills and expertise of analysts,” the brochure states. At the bottom of the brochure is a series of photographs illustrating BAE’s broad reach: -
a group of analysts monitoring a bank of computers -
three employees studying a map of Europe, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa -
the outlines of two related social networks that have been mapped out to show how their members are linked -
a bearded man, apparently from the Middle East and, presumably, a terrorist -
the fiery image of a the aftereffects of a car bomb explosion in Iraq -
four white radar domes (known as radomes) of the type used by the National Security Agency to monitor global communications from dozens of bases and facilities around the world
BAE AND HOMELAND SECURITY
The brochure may look and sound like typical corporate PR. But amidst BAE’s spy talk, strategically placed phrases alert intelligence officials to BAE's active presence inside the United States. The tip-off language was, By including them, BAE was broadcasting that it is not only a contractor for agencies involved in foreign intelligence, but also for domestic security agencies - a category that includes the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the FBI, as well as local and state police forces stretching from Maine to Hawaii. One of BAE’s newest products is specifically tailored for the homeland security market. “Geospatial Operations for a Secure Homeland – Awareness, Workflow, Knowledge” (GOSHAWK) is designed to provide geospatial intelligence – the computerized mapping and imagery tools managed by the NGA – to help law enforcement and state and local emergency agencies prepare for, and respond to, “natural disasters and terrorist and criminal incidents.” Under the GOSHAWK program, BAE supplies “agencies and corporations” with data providers and information technology specialists “capable of turning geospatial information into the knowledge needed for quick decisions.” A typical operation might involve acquiring data from satellites, aircraft, and sensors in ground vehicles, and integrating those data to support an emergency or security operations center. One of the program’s special attributes, the company says, is its ability to “differentiate levels of classification,” meaning that it can deduce when data are classified and meant only for use by analysts with security clearances.
BAE IN IRAQ
During GEOINT 2007, three BAE Systems employees, newly returned from a three-week tour of Iraq and Afghanistan with the NGA, demonstrated a new software package. SOCET GXP uses Google Earth software as a basis for creating three-dimensional maps that U.S. commanders and soldiers use to conduct intelligence and reconnaissance missions. Eric Bruce, one of the BAE employees back from the Middle East, said in the fall of 2007 that his team trained U.S. forces to use the GXP software “to study routes for known terrorist sites” as well as to locate opium fields. “Terrorists use opium to fund their war,” he said. Bruce also said Iraqi citizens helped his team locating targets. “Many of the locals can’t read maps, so they tell the analysts, ‘There is a mosque next to a hill,’” he explained. The U.S. Army’s Topographic Engineering Center bought earlier versions of the software and used them to collect data on more than 12,000 square kilometers of Iraq, primarily in urban centers and over supply routes. Bruce said BAE’s new package is designed for defense forces and intelligence agencies, but can also be used for homeland security and by highway departments and airports. Recent Contracts/Events
In July 2008, Nicole Suveges, a BAE Systems political scientist working in Iraq as an intelligence contractor for the US 4th Infantry Division, was killed in a bombing in Sadr City, Baghdad. Suveges had a masters degree in political science from George Washington University, where she had written a dissertation on “Markets and Mullahs: Global Networks, Transnational Ideas and the Deep Play of Political Culture.” She was working under a BAE contract to the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command to provide “training, programmatic, and staffing support” to the Army’s Human Terrain System program. (“BAE Systems statement regarding the loss of employee in Iraq,” BAE Systems News Release, June 25, 2008).
SOURCES
Primary sourcing for this profile came from Tim Shorrock, ''Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing'' (Simon & Schuster/2008) and from company press releases.
Email - greg.caires@baesystems.com (Greg Caires, director of Media Relations, BAE Systems Inc.)
Phone - +1 (703) 907-8261, +1 (301) 738-4000
Website - http://www.baesystems.com/ProductsServices/bae_prod_eis_global_analysis.html
Back to Contents Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and its Primary Contractors
Author/Researcher
Tim Shorrock
Headquarters
The Pentagon/Department of Defense, Virginia; Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.
Principal Agencies
Pentagon
Joint Chiefs of Staff
Top Executives
Lieutenant General Ronald L. Burgess, Jr, Director
Annual Revenue
$1 billion (estimated 2009)
Intelligence Percent of Revenue
(N/A - DIA is a contracting agency)
Summary
The Defense Intelligence Agency has an estimated budget of $1 billion and employs more than 11,000 military and civilian personnel, 35 percent of whom are contractors. It is the primary intelligence agency for the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, integrates all information available from intelligence units of the unified combatant commands, and ensures delivery of intelligence from spy satellites and surveillance planes to war-fighters on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other battlegrounds. Despite DIA's recent award to a private consortium of a contract worth more than $1 billion, the agency's officials insist: “We are not outsourcing intelligence analysis,” says Donald Black, DIA chief of public affairs. “A full-time government employee maintains authority, direction, and control over the process and a senior analyst/leader reviews all analytical products.” [1] Several former high-ranking DIA officials have left government to work for contractors (for examples, see the CACI profile).
Corporate Information -
Principal contractors: BAE Systems; Booz Allen Hamilton; SAIC, Inc.; CACI International, Inc.; and L-3 Communications Inc. -
Percent of workforce employed by contractors: 35 CorpWatch Analysis
The Defense Intelligence Agency was organized in 1961 to create a unified voice for the intelligence branches within the armed forces, and is the nation’s primary producer of foreign military intelligence. The DIA has a budget of about $1 billion and employs more than 11,000 military and civilian personnel, many of whom work overseas as defense attachés at US embassies. Its current director, Army Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, previously served as director of management of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Historically, the DIA director has answered directly to the military brass and then to the secretary of defense. The DIA describes its primary mission as providing, “timely, objective, all-source military intelligence to policy makers, war fighters, and force planners to meet a variety of challenges across the spectrum of conflict.” One of its most significant assignments is to provide centralized management for all national and defense activities related to MASINT, or measures and signatures intelligence – the “sniffing” by sensors that measures, detects, identifies, and tracks what the DIA calls “unique characteristics of fixed and dynamic targets.” MASINT and its related disciplines is one of the most highly classified projects within the intelligence community. It is, “particularly important for detecting ballistic missiles, directed energy weapons, and weapons of mass destruction,” Maples told a defense publication in 2006. “We’ve got to have the right kinds of signature databases that we can compare against, and the right kinds of collection capabilities to look into those three areas.” The DIA’s requirements for information technology and skilled analysts have made the agency a major employer of contractors. According to DIA officials who spoke to a May 2007 Defense Intelligence Acquisition Conference in Colorado, DIA contractors are filling a “workforce gap” that exists at DIA and most of the other agencies. During the 1990s, as intelligence budgets contracted, hundreds of career DIA officers retired and left the intelligence community. When the DIA began hiring new people after 9/11, the veteran officers who should have been around to train and mentor them were gone. But because it takes five to seven years to train a new officer, there was a “generational hole” that could only be filled by former intelligence officers with security clearances; and most of them were working in the private sector. Contractors were the only solution, officials said, to carry the agency through. “Although we continuously review our mix of government and contractor personnel to ensure we have the right resources to accomplish our missions, contractors are an integral part of our DIA team,” DIA Director Maples, told the Washington Post in an August 2007 letter to the editor.
Previous DIA contracting: BPAs
The DIA’s latest “Solutions for Intelligence Analysis” (SIA) contract is the successor to a series of Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs) through which the DIA has historically done most of its contracting.
A blanket purchase agreement is a simplified acquisition method that allows government agencies to fill anticipated repetitive needs for analytical services and other supplies. According to FedMarket.com, an Internet site for government contractors, “BPAs are like ‘charge accounts’ set up with trusted suppliers. Both agencies and vendors like BPAs because they help trim the red tape associated with repetitive purchasing. Once set up, repeat purchases are easy for both sides.” Under the BPA system that it established in 2003, DIA selected seven teams of vendors to compete against each other for outsourced work with the agency. Each agreement was worth about $300 million to the individual vendor teams, which were led by, -
BAE Systems North America -
Booz Allen Hamilton -
Computer Sciences Corporation -
Lockheed Martin -
Northrop Grumman -
SRA International -
Titan Corporation, now a subsidiary of L-3 Communications Inc. Contrary to Maples’ assertion to the Post, the agreements do incorporate analysis: A 2005 DIA report says the BPAs, “provide the full spectrum of Information Technology (IT) planning, design, implementation, Intelligence Analysis support services.” A similar system of BPAs was established by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) after Michael McConnell was sworn in as DNI in February 2007. The DIA’s blanket purchase agreements are known collectively as DIESCON 3, and are also open for bidding to other agencies in the intelligence community. (If the NSA is looking for IT expertise in a certain area, for example, it can ask for bids from the DIA’s bidding consortiums.) Each team in the DIESCON 3 system has a specific focus. The Booz Allen team, for example, includes 10,000 analysts with top secret, sensitive, compartmentalized information (TS/SCI) security clearances, and its consortium includes Accenture, a major outsourcing consultant to government agencies and private corporations, as well as Attensity Inc., a data analysis company initially funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. The Booz Allen team works closely on issues related to MASINT for the DIA; another important line of work, according to the Booz Allen BPA website, is data mining and link analysis for the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI. BAE Systems, which captured 41 orders worth $105 million during the first year of its agreement with the DIA, leads an industry team that specializes in analyzing enemy military forces, providing mapping and 3-D imagery to Pentagon intelligence teams, and preparing finished intelligence on paramilitary forces and insurgent and terrorist organizations operating in Iraq and other countries of interest. BAE’s BPA team includes SAIC, Booz Allen, Intellibridge Corporation, General Dynamics, Advanced Concepts Inc., SpecTal, and 41 other companies (the last two were acquired in 2007 by L-1 Identity solutions, the intelligence conglomerate where George Tenet is a director). The Lockheed Martin BPA team claims to have the largest cleared workforce in the nation and, according to its DIESCON 3 website, provides, “exceptional depth to respond to both surge requirements and planned customers tasks.” Its forte seems to be providing large, agency-wide IT systems for the DIA and other agencies. The team includes three of the top U.S. IT firms, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems, as well as the consulting firm BearingPoint, which helped plan the U.S. occupation of Iraq for the Department of Defense. Another member of the team is The Analysis Corporation, the intelligence contractor run by CIA veteran John Brennan. Northrop Grumman, meanwhile, has put together a powerful combination of companies that have made their way up the federal contracting chain by managing the oversight of other contractors. They manage the DIA’s system for processing bids and awarding contracts. It includes CACI International, AT&T, Mantech International, and four small, high-tech companies that provide contract analysts to the CIA. A fifth consortium is managed by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), one of the NSA’s most important contractors. It manages global information networks, and produces and disseminates intelligence products, including specialized expertise in the area of imagery processing and archiving. The CSC team includes CACI International and L-3 MPRI. This last company is one of the largest private armies in the world, and would have at its disposal hundreds of paramilitary officers who would fit in exceedingly well with the DIA’s secret intelligence teams in the Middle East and North Africa.
Recent Contracts/Events
In April 2008, the DIA awarded prime contracts to eight companies, giving them the right to bid on $1 billion worth of work over a five-year period.
Companies hired under the “Solutions for Intelligence Analysis” (SIA) contract will provide intelligence analysis support to the DIA as well as to the Armed Forces and the intelligence units of the military’s combatant commands, such as the U.S. Central Command. According to SAIC, the intent of the SIA contract is “to streamline the process of acquiring new contractors for the Defense Intelligence Enterprise.” That “enterprise,” it said, consists of the DIA, the intelligence units of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, as well as the Combatant Commands. [2] These companies will perform the work: -
BAE Systems (the U.S. subsidiary of the British defense giant BAE) -
Booz Allen Hamilton -
CACI International -
Concurrent Technologies Corp. - http://www.ctc.com -
L-3 Communications Inc. -
Northrop Grumman Corp. -
Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) -
SRA International Inc. [3]
SOURCES
Primary sourcing for this profile came from Tim Shorrock, ''Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing'' (Simon & Schuster/2008) and from DIA and company press releases.
[1] Email interview with Tim Shorrock, December 2007.
[2] SAIC, “Solutions for Intelligence Analysis,” http://www.saic.com/contractcenter/sia.
[3] SRA International specializes in providing engineering and IT services to the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. Through its Orion Center for Homeland Security, it provides counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and analytical services to the Department of Homeland Security and various military intelligence units. Email - DIA-PAO@dia.mil (Public affairs)
Phone - +1-703-695-0071 (Public affairs)
Website - http://www.dia.mil Back to Contents The Analysis Corporation (TAC)
Author/Researcher
Tim Shorrock
Headquarters
1501 Farm Credit Drive, Suite 2300, McLean, VA 22102-5000
Principal Agencies
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Department of State
National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
Top Executives
Alexander Drew, President
Annual Revenue
Not disclosed (privately owned)
Intelligence Percent of Revenue
Not disclosed
Summary
The Analysis Corporation (TAC) specializes in providing counterterrorism analysis and watchlists to U.S. government agencies. It is best known for its connection to John O. Brennan, its former CEO, a 35-year veteran of the CIA and currently President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser. Brennan, the first director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), retired from government in November 2005 and immediately joined TAC. TAC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the defense and intelligence contractor, Global Strategies Group/North America. As of 2008, it employed more than 140 people who, according to company literature, support the work of intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security agencies “with heavy emphasis on counterterrorism.” Much of TAC’s business is with the NCTC itself. In fact, the NCTC is one of the company’s largest customers, and TAC provides counterterrorism (CT) support to “most of the agencies within the intelligence community,” according to a company press release. One of its biggest customers is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which manages the NCTC.
Corporate Information
On its website, TAC states:
“TAC is at the forefront of the effort to safeguard U.S. national security interests. Since its start in 1990, TAC has provided mission critical intelligence support and technical solutions to the U.S. Government and non-governmental clients. Each and every day, TAC makes important contributions in the counterterrorism (CT) and national security realm by supporting national watch-listing activities as well as other CT requirements.” An earlier posting said that TAC, “has a strong cadre of cleared intelligence analysts and specialists who have extensive experience in CT and related fields. With a demonstrated record of retaining quality CT analysts in a dynamic market, TAC consistently provides skilled analysts intimately familiar with the missions, roles, and responsibilities of the Government's multifaceted CT Community. TAC employees are integrated into intelligence, law enforcement, defense, and homeland security work units, serve in Government operations centers, and play a critical role in watch-listing efforts… TAC staff consists of subject matter experts with extensive expertise in a wide range of disciplines. This expertise is available to assist clients in business process re-engineering, program management, strategic planning, applied technology, facilitation, and governance challenges.”
CorpWatch Analysis
During the 1990s, TAC developed the U.S. government’s first terrorist database, “Tipoff,” on behalf of the State Department.
The database was initially conceived as a tool to help U.S. consular officials and customs inspectors determine if foreigners trying to enter the United States were |
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