Tag Archives: Pentagon

Business

Pentagon cancels $10 billion JEDI cloud contract

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The Department of Defense announced Tuesday it’s calling off the $10 billion cloud contract that was the subject of a legal battle involving Amazon and Microsoft. But it’s also announcing a new contract and soliciting proposals from both cloud service providers where both will likely clinch a reward.

The JEDI, or Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, deal has become one of the most tangled contracts for the Department of Defense. In a press release Tuesday, the Pentagon said that “due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances, the JEDI Cloud contract no longer meets its needs.”

Shares of Microsoft were down about 0.4% following the news and Amazon shares were up 3.5% after already reaching a 52-week high.

The fight over a cloud computing project does not appear to be completely over yet. The Pentagon said in the press release that it still needs enterprise-scale cloud capability and announced a new multi-vendor contract known as the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability.

The agency said it plans to solicit proposals from both Amazon and Microsoft for the contract, adding that they are the only cloud service providers that can meet its needs. But, it added, it will continue to do market research to see if others could also meet its specifications.

The lucrative JEDI contract was intended to modernize the Pentagon’s IT operations for services rendered over as many as 10 years. Microsoft was awarded the cloud computing contract in 2019, beating out market leader Amazon Web Services.

A month later, Amazon’s cloud computing unit, AWS, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims protesting the JEDI decision.

The company argued that President Donald Trump’s bias against Amazon and its then-CEO, Jeff Bezos, influenced the Pentagon to give the contract to Microsoft.

Last year, the Pentagon’s inspector general released a report saying that the award did not appear to be influenced by the White House.

However, the inspector general noted in the 313-page report published in April 2020 that it had limited cooperation from White House officials throughout its review and, as a result, it could not complete its assessment of allegations of ethical misconduct.

Microsoft said in a blog post Tuesday it understands the Pentagon’s decision to cancel the JEDI contract, but said the legal fight over it illustrated a need for reform.

“The 20 months since DoD selected Microsoft as its JEDI partner highlights issues that warrant the attention of policymakers: when one company can delay, for years, critical technology upgrades for those who defend our nation, the protest process needs reform,”  Toni Townes-Whitley, president of U.S. regulated industries at Microsoft, wrote.

Townes-Whitley added that the DoD decision “doesn’t change the fact that not once, but twice, after careful review by professional procurement staff, the DoD decided that Microsoft and our technology best met their needs. It doesn’t change the DoD Inspector General’s finding that there was no evidence of interference in the procurement process. And it doesn’t change the fact that the DoD and other federal agencies – indeed, large enterprises worldwide – select Microsoft to support their cloud computing and digital transformation needs on a regular basis.”

Amazon did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

A Pentagon official said on a call with reporters that the litigation itself was not necessarily the main reason for the shifted approach. But given how much the landscape changed during the intervening time, the agency determined its needs had also shifted.

“The mission needs have been our primary driver on this,” said DoD Acting Chief Information Officer John Sherman.

The DoD said its cloud vendor for the new contract will have to meet several criteria, like working on all three classification levels (i.e. unclassified, secret or top secret), be available around the world and have top tier cybersecurity controls.

The agency said it expects the new contract value to be in the multi-billions, though it is still determining the maximum value. It expects the contract to last up to five years, including a three-year performance base period and two, one-year option periods.

The Pentagon expects the JWCC to “be a bridge to our longer term approach,” Sherman said. He said the department expects to make the direct rewards through the contract around April 2022 and open a broader competition as soon as 2025.

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WATCH: How Amazon Web Services transfers massive amounts of data to the cloud

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World

Biden Trimming Forces Sent to Mideast to Help Saudi Arabia

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WASHINGTON—President Biden has directed the Pentagon to begin removing some military capabilities and forces from the Gulf region in the first steps of an effort to realign the U.S. global military footprint away from the Mideast, changes that come as Saudi Arabia endures rocket and drone attacks from inside Yemen and Iraq.

In moves that haven’t been previously reported, the U.S. has removed at least three Patriot antimissile batteries from the Gulf region, including one from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, that had been put in place in recent years to help protect American forces.

Other capabilities, including an aircraft carrier and surveillance systems, are being diverted from the Middle East to answer military needs elsewhere around the globe, according to U.S. officials. Additional reductions are under consideration, officials said.

Mr. Biden pledged after taking office that he would recalibrate the U.S.-Saudi relationship, taking several tough steps against the kingdom, including freezing the sale of offensive weapons that Riyadh has used in its six-year military intervention in Yemen. He also made public an intelligence report saying Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, approved the operation that led to the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

But administration officials also have said they don’t want to destroy the U.S.-Saudi relationship, and have said they will seek ways to help Riyadh defend against rocket and missile attacks from militant fighters.

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US

Army now reviewing Pentagon investigation into Michael Flynn’s dealings with Russia and other foreign entities

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It is unclear when the Defense Department may announce its decision in the matter. The Washington Post first reported the report’s referral to the Army.
Former President Donald Trump pardoned Flynn, his first national security adviser, last November, an action that wiped away the guilty plea Flynn had made in 2017 — and then attempted to withdraw in 2020 — for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia during the 2016 presidential transition.
The Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General had opened its own investigation in April 2017, looking into money that Flynn had received from Russian and Turkish entities after his retirement from the service and whether he had failed to obtain the proper approval to do so. The military has strict rules for payments that retired officers can take from foreign countries after their retirement from service.

That investigation had been put on hold as then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential campaign and other investigations got underway.

“On April 11, 2017, the DoD OIG initiated an investigation into an allegation that retired Lieutenant General (LTG) Michael Flynn failed to obtain required approval from the Army and the Department of State before receiving any emolument from a foreign government or a foreign government-controlled entity. At the request of the Department of Justice (DOJ), we placed our investigation in abeyance in June 2017, pending the outcome of criminal allegations against LTG Flynn,” IG spokeswoman Dwrena Allen said in a statement.

“After the former President pardoned LTG Flynn on November 25, 2020, we received permission from the DOJ to continue our investigation. On January 27, 2021, we closed our investigation against LTG Flynn and forwarded several administrative matters to the Acting Secretary of the Army for review and appropriate action,” Allen added.

In December 2017, Flynn became one of the most significant and earliest defendants to plead guilty and cooperate in the Mueller investigation. He admitted to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia during the Trump presidential transition in 2016, and secretly lobbying for Turkey.
But he dramatically reversed course in 2019, tried to withdraw his guilty plea in 2020 and promoted conspiracy theories about the Mueller investigation.

Flynn gravitated back into Trump’s orbit, and he and his lawyer ultimately assisted the former President’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

CNN’s Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.

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US

Tucker Carlson swats back at ‘woke generals’ after criticism

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Fox News host Tucker CarlsonTucker CarlsonVeteran PAC slams Tucker Carlson for comments on female service members Overnight Defense: Tucker Carlson comments cause military rage | Capitol guard duty questioned | Vet who served in Marine One unit charged in insurrection Duckworth slams Tucker Carlson over remarks on women in the military MORE fired back at the Pentagon after a slate of military leaders berated him for comments he made about Defense Department changes meant to attract more female recruits.

Carlson, who had bashed the changes, rebuked the “woke generals” for their criticism and said he and his supporters were not “rattled.” 

“We were almost rattled. Then we realized if the woke generals treat us like they’ve treated the Taliban, we’ll be fine. Twenty years later, the Taliban are still here. Maybe we ought to promise the Pentagon that we’ll get rid of traditional gender roles on this show. Change the pronouns, defeat the patriarchy, and all that,” Carlson said on his program Friday night. 

The response marks the latest salvo in a back-and-forth between Carlson and the Pentagon. The conservative host on Monday railed against President BidenJoe BidenThe Memo: Nation rallies for Biden on his COVID-19 response Democrats debate fast-track for infrastructure package Japanese prime minister expected to be Biden’s first foreign visit at White House MORE’s promotions of two female generals and remarks touting new efforts to improve conditions for women in the military, including work to design maternity flight suits and updating grooming standards to allow for a wider range of hairstyles.

“So we’ve got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits. Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It’s a mockery of the U.S. military,” Carlson said.

“While China’s military becomes more masculine as it has assembled the world’s largest navy, our military needs to become, as Joe Biden says, more feminine, whatever feminine means anymore,” he continued. 

Military leaders fired back later in the week, voicing their support for women in the armed forces.

“Women lead our most lethal units with character,” tweeted Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston, the service’s top enlisted leader. “They will dominate ANY future battlefield we’re called to fight on. @TuckerCarlson’s words are divisive, don’t reflect our values. We have THE MOST professional, educated, agile, and strongest [noncommissioned officer] Corps in the world.”

“I would hope that in the reaction he’s seeing, and hopefully in our reaction here today, that he’ll realize the mistake he made and express some regret about the manner in which he essentially demeaned the entire U.S. military, and how we defend and how we serve this country,” added Pentagon press secretary John Kirby, who relayed Defense Secretary Lloyd AustinLloyd AustinJapanese prime minister expected to be Biden’s first foreign visit at White House Overnight Defense: Tucker Carlson comments cause military rage | Capitol guard duty questioned | Vet who served in Marine One unit charged in insurrection House Armed Services leaders: Level of security at Capitol ‘not warranted at this time’ MORE’s “revulsion” at Carlson’s remarks.



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World

Cotton grills Biden Pentagon nominee on ‘volatile outbursts,’ ‘almost always wrong’ foreign policy judgments

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Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., accused one of President Biden’s top Pentagon picks of having a “long record of volatile outbursts” and said he will oppose the nomination during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday.

Colin Kahl, a former Obama adviser, is Biden’s pick for undersecretary of defense for policy. 

BIDEN PICK FOR TOP PENTAGON POSITION HYPED STEELE DOSSIER, TRUMP-RUSSIA COLLUSION CLAIMS

Cotton accused Kahl of being wrong about Middle East policy for the last four years before questioning some of his social media posts about former President Donald Trump and Republicans.

“When Mideast policy was your job at the Pentagon, you failed to foresee the rise of ISIS, which launched an actual war involving 30,000 Islamic insurgents conquering a quarter of Iraq,” Cotton said. “Dr. Kahl, it seems to me that your judgments about matters of war and peace are almost always wrong.”

Cotton also took issue with some of Kahl’s social media posts, claiming they showed he was not fit to serve in the administration.

“In 2019, in response to a story about Syria, you wrote that the Republican Party has debased itself at the altar of Trump and now is the party of ethnic cleansing,” Cotton said. “The job you seek demands a judicious, even-tempered demeanor. You’ll face disagreements every day in the Pentagon, across the executive branch, with Congress. But your long record of volatile outbursts will have a toxic and detrimental impact on your relationship with Congress.”

Kahl acknowledged he used language that was “sometimes disrespectful” and apologized.

Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for the Middle East Colin Kahl participates in a panel discussion about Iran’s nuclear program on Capitol Hill, February 21, 2012 (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

“There were a number of positions that President Trump took that I strongly opposed. I think the language that I used in opposing those was sometimes disrespectful, and for that, I apologize,” Kahl said. “I understand that the position of the undersecretary of defense for policy, while it’s a political appointment, is not a political job.”

Cotton was not appeased.

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“If this is the way you respond to mere policy disagreements when you’re sitting at home reading the news, I do not think that you’re fit to sit in the Pentagon and make decisions about life and death. That’s one reason why I’ll oppose your nomination,” he said.

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Pentagon clears out advisory boards, citing concerns over last-minute Trump picks

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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has dismissed every member of the Pentagon’s advisory boards in a sweeping move fueled by concern that the Trump administration had rushed through a series of last-minute appointments, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

The move affects several hundred board members who sit on about 40 advisory boards, including dozens of people who had been named to the posts in the closing days of former President Donald Trump’s tenure.

Among those dismissed are highly partisan figures such as Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign manager, David Bossie, a former Trump deputy campaign manager, former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich and retired Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata. But instead of singling out Trump appointees, the move applies to all board members, including those appointed before the Trump presidency.

“I am directing the immediate suspension of all advisory committee operations until the review is completed unless otherwise directed by myself or the deputy secretary of defense,” Austin said in a memo released Tuesday.

The advisory boards offer guidance to the Pentagon on policy, science, business and numerous other topics and the members are not paid. To make way for new appointees, the Trump White House in some cases removed some longtime board members and replaced them with pro-Trump loyalists.

“There is no question that the frenetic activity that occurred to the composition of so many boards, in just the period of November to January, deeply concerned the secretary and certainly helped to drive him to this decision,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters.

Austin decided that dismissing all members of the advisory boards and asking for a full review of their activity was the most equitable, effective way of addressing the matter, two Defense officials told reporters in an earlier briefing.

Apart from ordering all board members to resign by Feb. 16, Austin temporarily suspended the activity of the boards and ordered an elaborate review of all the Defense Department advisory boards to examine the role, utility and composition of those panels, according to a memo released by the Pentagon.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the decision.

Dan De Luce is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit. 

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Pentagon chief purges advisors for fresh start after Trump overhaul

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  • Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called for an “immediate suspension” of the department’s advisory committee operations.
  • The secretary has also ordered the “conclusion of service” for all advisory board members.
  • The advisory boards are comprised of civilians appointed to provide bipartisan counsel.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called for an “immediate suspension” of the department’s advisory committee operations as it conducts a top-down review and ordered the removal of all advisory board members by mid-February, an internal memo said.

Austin, who was nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the US Senate in late January, said that the Defense Department’s review was being conducted to “align with our most pressing strategic priorities and the National Defense Strategy.”

“Advisory committees have and will continue to provide an important role in shaping public policy within [the Department of Defense],” Austin said in his memo to the department. “That said, our stewardship responsibilities require that we continually assess to ensure each advisory committee provides appropriate value today and in the future, as times and requirements change.”

In the memo, Austin says that “conclusion of service” for all advisory board members will take place no later than Feb. 16.

News of the changes to the department’s advisory committees was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday afternoon. The latest news follows a report last week from Politico that the Pentagon had halted all appointments to the boards.

The various Pentagon advisory boards are comprised of civilians appointed by a defense secretary to provide bipartisan counsel on matters that range from business to military policy.

The intended nonpartisan goals of the committees were heavily scrutinized after acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller — who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump after he fired his defense secretary following the November election — purged the boards and installed a number of loyalists in the final weeks of the administration.

After Miller abruptly emptied out most of the Defense Policy Board, he cleared out much of the Defense Business Board. Changes to other boards then followed. He then selected loyalists like Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and deputy campaign manager David Bossie to fill the vacancies.

Some of the loyal individuals the administration sought to install on the boards included people who have been surrounded by controversy.

Scott O’Grady, a retired US Air Force F-16 pilot, was appointed to the Defense Policy Board in December. The war hero promoted several conspiracy theories in support of Trump’s baseless claims that the presidential election was stolen.

O’Grady recently shared a tweet saying that ” suggesting that martial law is not a bad idea when there is an attempted coup against the president,” according to CNN, which also reported that O’Grady shared other debunked theories about the election, insulted former military officials, and retweeted at least one pro-QAnon hashtag.

Ret. US Army Gen. Anthony Tata, who was also appointed as an advisor, previously drew criticism for his characterization of former President Barack Obama as a “terrorist leader” with “Islamic roots.”

As the Trump administration quickly moved to overhaul the advisory boards, an advisor on the Defense Business Board who survived the purge resigned in protest. In his resignation letter, Steve Blank wrote that by purging advisory boards and filling them with Trump allies, the Trump administration had “put the nation’s safety and security at risk.”

Speaking to the press Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the “frenetic activity” at the end of the Trump administration “deeply concerned” Austin and was a driving factor in his decision to clean out the boards and start over.



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World

Pentagon May Send Troops to Assist With Vaccines, Enlarging Federal Role

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WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is considering sending active-duty troops to large, federally run coronavirus vaccine centers, a major departure for the department and the first significant sign that the Biden administration is moving to take more control of a program that states are struggling to manage.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is hoping to set up roughly 100 vaccine sites nationwide as early as next month, and on Wednesday night requested that the Pentagon send help to support the effort. The sites, and the use of the military within them, would require the approval of state governments.

While many state governors have turned to their National Guard units to assist with the mass effort to vaccinate Americans and outrace more contagious variants of the coronavirus, the Pentagon’s role has been largely behind the scenes, providing help with logistics.

During his confirmation hearings last week, Lloyd J. Austin III, the secretary of defense, said he would increase military support to manage the pandemic. On Thursday, Max Rose, Mr. Austin’s senior adviser for Covid-19, said his first topic of conversation in meetings with senior leaders had been making this the “No. 1 priority.”

Sending troops to help set up sites, assist with logistics and even put shots in arms is something the Defense Department is “actively considering,” Mr. Rose said. He declined to provide specifics, saying that Pentagon officials would be reviewing the request from FEMA carefully.

“We are obviously going to source this request,” said John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, noting that, after a review, it would most likely be filled with more National Guard, reserve and active-duty troops.

“I would say we are talking days, certainly not weeks, to get this sourced,” Mr. Kirby said. “We know there’s an urgency.”

The military is likely to provide thousands of troops in the next several months, not unlike the mobilization that the Trump administration put together a few years ago to supplement enforcement at the border with Mexico.

Many states and territories have set up large vaccination sites, and over half are using National Guard members to give shots, drawing on doctors, nurses, medics and others skilled in injections. FEMA, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, has already told six states, two territories and Washington, D.C., that it would spend $1 billion on vaccine measures, including community vaccination sites.

It was not immediately clear where the vaccines would come from for new federal sites; they would most likely be drawn from the supply already given to individual states and territories. Most states have not come close to administering the vaccine they have been given.

Covid-19 Vaccines ›

Answers to Your Vaccine Questions

Currently more than 150 million people — almost half the population — are eligible to be vaccinated. But each state makes the final decision about who goes first. The nation’s 21 million health care workers and three million residents of long-term care facilities were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal officials urged all states to open up eligibility to everyone 65 and older and to adults of any age with medical conditions that put them at high risk of becoming seriously ill or dying from Covid-19. Adults in the general population are at the back of the line. If federal and state health officials can clear up bottlenecks in vaccine distribution, everyone 16 and older will become eligible as early as this spring or early summer. The vaccine hasn’t been approved in children, although studies are underway. It may be months before a vaccine is available for anyone under the age of 16. Go to your state health website for up-to-date information on vaccination policies in your area

You should not have to pay anything out of pocket to get the vaccine, although you will be asked for insurance information. If you don’t have insurance, you should still be given the vaccine at no charge. Congress passed legislation this spring that bars insurers from applying any cost sharing, such as a co-payment or deductible. It layered on additional protections barring pharmacies, doctors and hospitals from billing patients, including those who are uninsured. Even so, health experts do worry that patients might stumble into loopholes that leave them vulnerable to surprise bills. This could happen to those who are charged a doctor visit fee along with their vaccine, or Americans who have certain types of health coverage that do not fall under the new rules. If you get your vaccine from a doctor’s office or urgent care clinic, talk to them about potential hidden charges. To be sure you won’t get a surprise bill, the best bet is to get your vaccine at a health department vaccination site or a local pharmacy once the shots become more widely available.

That is to be determined. It’s possible that Covid-19 vaccinations will become an annual event, just like the flu shot. Or it may be that the benefits of the vaccine last longer than a year. We have to wait to see how durable the protection from the vaccines is. To determine this, researchers are going to be tracking vaccinated people to look for “breakthrough cases” — those people who get sick with Covid-19 despite vaccination. That is a sign of weakening protection and will give researchers clues about how long the vaccine lasts. They will also be monitoring levels of antibodies and T cells in the blood of vaccinated people to determine whether and when a booster shot might be needed. It’s conceivable that people may need boosters every few months, once a year or only every few years. It’s just a matter of waiting for the data.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, has already said he does not want “FEMA camps” in his state. “That’s not necessary in Florida,” he told reporters last week after the Biden administration released its plan to address the pandemic, including the FEMA sites. “All we need is more vaccine.”

The Trump administration largely preferred the states to manage efforts to combat the pandemic, leaving governors to acquire protective gear for health care workers and manage testing, contact tracing and other aspects of response. While it cut deals with pharmaceutical companies to expedite the development of vaccines and offered guidance on whom to prioritize in receiving shots, it largely left states to manage their supplies.

State governments have run into a number of snags in getting their vaccines into arms, including resistance among some health care and nursing home workers and others in prioritized groups to the vaccine, and struggles in medical centers to manage their supplies.

The Biden administration has set goals to get more Americans vaccinated quickly, but it is not clear that there will be enough supply should it succeed in speeding up the logistical system, particularly with many Americans now awaiting second shots.

The federal government had been reimbursing states — many of them struggling from large drops in tax revenue — for only 75 percent of their National Guard costs associated with coronavirus relief. The administration will increase that to 100 percent, including for support needed to distribute and administer vaccines, until the end of September.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.

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