Lockheed Earnings Rise- Information Tech Business Flourishing (Spyware)

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First-quarter earnings rose 16 percent for defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) on higher military airplane sales and stronger information technology business, prompting the company to raise its outlook Tuesday for the coming year.

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The continued buildup of the company's developing F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (search) program, combined with higher deliveries of F-16 jets (search) and C-130J transport planes (search) drove up sales in the aeronautics segment by 38 percent. Government information technology sales were also up 24 percent in the quarter. (spyware)
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In order to replace weapons used in Afghanistan, and in concert with the military conflict in Iraq, most U.S. weapons makers have increased production. Bombs are big business again and the Bush administration has opened the candy store, exporting death, conquest, and perpetual war.

With a share of 24% of U.S. arms exports, Lockheed-Martin is the world's largest arms exporting company. Lockheed leads the pack of defense contractors who do business with the U.S. with valuable Pentagon contracts worth a total of nearly $30 billion and an advertised $70 billion backlog. http://www.cdi.org/issues/wme/spendersFY03.html

Lockheed has 125,000 employees in the United States and overseas with 939 facilities in 457 cities and 45 states throughout the U.S.; internationally, with business locations in 56 nations and territories.

Lockheed leads the defense industry in lobbying expenditures. Lockheed Martin made over $10.6 million in campaign contributions to candidates and party committees from 1990 to 2000, including $3.4 million in donations in the run-up to the year 2000 elections. http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/updates/051603.html

The company actively lobbies for the need to retain substantial numbers of existing nuclear weapons while developing new ones. Lockheed Martin receives more than $1 billion per year from the Department of Energy - to operate the Sandia National Laboratories (involved in the design and production of nuclear warheads) and help run the Nevada Test Site for "sub-critical testing" of new nuclear weapons designs. http://actagainstwar.org/downloads/LMflyer2page.pdf

The ex-Lockheed Martin employees with the most direct connections to nuclear and missile defense policy are:

Former chief operating officer Peter B. Teets, who is now Under Secretary of the Air Force and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), a post that includes making decisions on the acquisition of everything from reconnaissance satellites to space-based elements of missile defense.

And, Everet Beckner, who served as the chief executive of Lockheed Martin's division that helped run the United Kingdom's Atomic Weapons Establishment. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/uk/uk-usa.htm

Beckner is now Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, charged with oversight of maintenance, development, and production of nuclear warheads. http://www.dp.doe.gov/about_nn.asp

In their new positions, both Teets and Beckner are well-positioned to make decisions on procurement and research programs that will directly or indirectly benefit their former employer (Lockheed),which has major portfolios in nuclear weapons, missile defense, and military space systems.

Lockheed Martin also produces the Trident II, a nuclear missile with first strike capabilities. The firm is also heavily invested in ballistic missile defense. http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missiles/wep-d5.html

The Arms Trade Resource Center, reported that 80% of Lockheed's business is with the Department of Defense and other federal government agencies. It is also the largest provider of information technology services, systems integration, and training to the U.S. government. Such business has grown substantially during the Bush tenure, especially in fiscal year 2002 as plans for war were formulated. http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/links.html

The ATRC report calculates that Lockheed was awarded $17 billion in defense contracts in 2002, up from $14.7 billion in 2001. First quarter sales for 2003 were $7.1 billion, an 18% increase from the corresponding quarter in 2002.

The Pentagon recently engineered the largest defense contract in U.S. military history, a potential $250 billion deal that called for the construction of approximately 6000 Joint Strike Fighter combat planes.

On October 26, Air Force Secretary and former Northrup president James G. Roche, awarded the JSF contract to Lockheed-Martin and Northrop-Grumman. The only other competitor was Boeing. The order which stretches over 40 years, calls for the development and manufacturing of 3000 fighters to be used by the Air Force, Navy and Marines. http://www.lmaeronautics.com/products/combat_air/x-35/

Navy secretary Gordon England served as president of Lockheed's Fort Worth division, which will build the fighter planes.

The JSF contract also includes an a similar number of planes to be sold abroad to countries like Turkey, Israel, and Canada.

Current Lockheed chairman Vance Coffman said that his company would "honor the trust shown by the Pentagon."

However, these corporations simply cannot be trusted to keep their word or their commitments over the length of these multibillion, multi-year contracts which are awarded and maintained with responsibility for oversight falling into the hands of several successive administrations and legislatures.

Ronald Sugar, the new head of Northrup-Grumman, at a recent conservative policy forum on the defense industry remarked, that he expects the government to be responsible for a financially stable military industry.

"Time is risk, . . . the defense industry needs steady, predictable growth," he said.

Pentagon senior defense consultant Richard Perle, who also spoke at the conference, opined that, "A profitable defense industry keeps America strong."Profits have been pretty darn good; CEO pay, however, has been even better.

According to the study by United for a Fair Economy, More Bucks for the Bang: ", the median CEO salary at the 37 largest publicly traded defense contractors rose 79% between 2001 and 2002 whereas overall CEO salary increased only 6%. In 2002, defense industry CEOs earned an average of $5.4 million - or 577 times as much as a private in Iraq - while other U.S. CEOs, on average, earned "only" $3.7 million." http://www.ufenet.org/press/2003/BucksforBang.pdf

At the military industry conference hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, defense policy advisor Richard Perle mused that, "It would be better if we simply handed the money to the defense industry and let them invest it themselves, . . . but Congress likes to control that . . . , but it gives the impression that the merchants of death are unduly licenced." http://www.c-span.org/Search/basic.asp?ResultStart=1&ResultCount=10&BasicQueryText=American+Institute+of+Aeronautics
Perle then made a weak plea for less regulation of arms exports ($140 + billion since 1992), and suggested that export licencing be consolidated into one agency. I wonder who the administration executives will suggest to head that office.

Industry lawyers; resumes at the ready!

You can hear the regret in his statement. If we would only just give the industry the money they want, no strings attached; they would provide for the nation's defense needs.

The industry wants us to believe that they are the best judges of what the next generation's needs are in terms of weaponry.

But the existence of these corporations and their new hi-tech boondoggles will not make us anymore secure than the existence of these same executives in our government have kept our sons and daughters from dying in senseless wars.


These are excerpts from my book, Power Of Mischief: http://www.returningsoldiers.us/pompage.htm

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