Rapid Fire 10-25-11: OMB Sides with SAC
- Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions (IS&GS) announced a voluntary layoff program to reduce its headcount by 250 in February 2012, out of a 30,000 total worldwide.
- Northrop Grumman to supply AQS-24A airborne mine-hunting system to Japan for their MCH-101 helicopters.
- The Begin-Saadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) in Israel released a preliminary evaluation of the Iron Dome anti-rocket system. Uzi Rubin, the author of the report [PDF in Hebrew], thinks it’s too early to assess the full impact of the system, but says it did save lives.
- An F-15C Eagle from Nellis Air Force Base crashed in Nevada yesterday without making any casualty.
- US DoD deputy chief information officer Robert J. Carey claims rapid IT acquisition programs often fail to scale.
- Son of Stuxnet: meet Duqu, apparently an iteration of the cyberweapon used to penetrate Iran’s nuclear plants in the last couple of years.
- Pantex in Texas is dismantling the last 9,000-pound B-53 nuclear bombs.
- In a letter [PDF] sent to the US Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) Chairman last week, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) expresses its support for the version of the FY12 Appropriations bill approved by the SAC last month. The Senate still has to vote on the bill then go to conference with the House to agree on a common text for the bill.
- South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma appointed a Supreme Court of Appeal judge to probe the 1999 Strategic Defence Package (SDP).
- The US House Foreign Affairs Committee has a hearing today on the recent troop deployment in Central Africa. See video below:
