Outsourcing Security: Defense Manufacturing Goes the Way of the Automobile

[eridani]

http://www.truth-out.org/outsourcing-security-defense-manufacturing-goes-way-automobile60818

He says the Pentagon started outsourcing the manufacturing of "high-end" computer chips to Taiwan in the early 1990s—microchips used in US fighter jets and missile defense systems, for instance. Over time, the Taiwanese have "second-sourced" most of these contracts to the Chinese, he says.

"Can we trust buying chips from China for our military systems? Will they perform as well?" asks Hawkins. "We have found Chinese chips do not perform as well. They've also found counterfeit chips in the supply chain. Can we be sure the Chinese won't plant Trojans or bugs in them?"

Indeed, on June 13th on 60 Minutes, Jim Gosler, an expert on cyberwarfare, said the US government has uncovered sabotaged microchips within some of the nation's most powerful weapons. "It's very clear that a foreign intelligence service put them there," he added.

Hawkins says outsourcing US weapons manufacturing started gaining serious traction back in 2004, when the Bush White House and Bush Administration free market neo-cons such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz began to force the outsourcing of an industry they all seemingly were in love with.

Way back in 2004, Kerry made an issue of this in his campaign--

Magnequench once made highly specialized rare earth magnets-crucial components in guidance systems of JDAM bombs and Cruise Missiles-here in the U.S., but they've outsourced our jobs and our national security to China.

In September 2003, Magnequench closed its last plant in Indiana, sending 450 workers into unemployment and moving its operation to China. The shift to China was no surprise. In 1995, the company was purchased by a front company for two Chinese companies, each of whose executives were in-laws of Chinese Premier Deng Xiaopeng. Magnequench’s CEO Archibald Cox Jr. had pledged in 1995 to invest heavily in the U.S plants, but in 1998 shut the first plant and moved operations to China. Cox is now managing the final phase of the transfer of operations to China.


Source Article: http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair10252003.html
Lettner Article: http://www.insightmag.com/news/2003/02/18/World/Missile.Technology.Sent.To.China-357426.shtml