EDO Corporation is an American company that designs and manufactures products for defense, intelligence, and commercial markets, and provides related engineering and professional services. It has been the object of criticism in the United States and in the city of Brighton in the United Kingdom. In December 2007 it was bought out by ITT Corporation .

Criticism in the United States

2004 fine

In 2004 EDO Corporation were ordered to pay a fine of $2.5 million. This matter was related to activities of the former Condor Systems company, before EDO acquired assets of Condor Systems during their bankruptcy proceedings. Charges are laid out in a letter from the U.S. State Department to EDO President and CEO James Smith. Senior Vice President of Condor Systems, Fredric B. Bassett is EDO’s Senior Vice President-Finance, Treasurer, Chief Financial Officer.

The Earmarks affair

EDO Corporation has made payments from its Political Action Committee, to the political funds of both Republican and Democratic Party candidates, but these have tended to be to politicians who are on important government military defence and procurement committees. Controversy has arisen over contributions, to Senators Hillary Clinton,Charles Schumer and Congressman Steven Israel, who have then backed 'earmarked' government military contracts for EDO Corporation, soon afterwards.

On December 27, 2005, the New York Sun reported that:

Many of the companies and executives who won earmarks this year donated money not only to Senator Clinton, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and to Mr. Schumer, but also to Mr. Israel. And several of those designated for earmarks gave to members of the Joint Defense Appropriations Conference Committee, which wrote the New York projects into the defense spending bill.

On 20 September 2006, the New York Sun reported EDO had gained further government defense contacts after giving financial donations to Washington insiders.

EDO President James M. Smith and the 2006 Executive Excess Report

On 30 August 2006, EDO Corporation Chairman, CEO, and President, James M. Smith, was named in a report produced by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, entitled 'Executive Excess'. Smith was reported as having received one of the highest percentage pay raises of any CEO in America, as a direct result of the 'War on Terror' since 2001. His total compensation in 2006 was $1.8 million per year, up from $893,200 in 2001. In July 2006 Smith filed U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) data showing he had sacked 400 workers at a factory in California after his management team had failed to secure a lucrative contract for anti-IED devices. In September 2003 EDO was listed by Fortune magazine as number 10 in the top 100 fastest growing companies in the U.S. EDO have failed to make the top 100 at all in recent years because of financial troubles. and are now owned by ITT Corporation.

EDO Director Dennis C. Blair and the EDO-IDA scandal

Dennis C. Blair was until 2006 a Director of EDO Corp. He has also been a U.S. military commander and the Associate Director of the Central Intelligence Agency for Military Support. He is on record as having knowledge of covert CIA operations within allied countries that were intended to influence political affairs for the benefit of US interests.

On 25 July 2006, the Washington Post published an article by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist R. Jeffrey Smith and Renae Merlethat. This detailed links between a think tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) that had been commissioned as an independent advisor to the Pentagon, and EDO Corporation. The article exposed serious issues arising out of Blair's joint positions as president of IDA and as a director of EDO Corp.

The article was based on evidence gathered by a non-profit corruption watchdog, called the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) that had published a detailed report on the same day, entitled "Preying on The Taxpayer: The F22 Raptor." This report details evidence of a conflict of interest between IDA and EDO Corporation.

The POGO report describes how IDA had produced an independent study for the Pentagon, entitled F-22 A Multiyear Procurement Business Case Analysis, that advised the U.S. Congress that a multiyear procurement (MYP) of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor could result in a cost savings, which is one of six requirements for issuing a multiyear procurement contract. The report did note, however, that this estimated cost savings was less than for other historical MYPs. Congress then approved the MYP, through a legislative amendment, proposed by Senator Saxby Chambliss (GA), partly on the basis of the report's findings. The IDA report was the only one at the time that backed an F-22 program extension, in contrast with two other previous reports that had advised against it. A separate study by RAND, however, commissioned in the wake of the IDA-EDO scandal, also estimated a cost savings associated with an F-22 MYP contract, which was actually larger than the estimated cost savings that IDA reported. The Chambliss amendment extended the production life of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor by three years, overturning a previous decision to phase out the fighter plane because of safety and performance problems, as well as its huge expense. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Airland Subcommittee, on 25 July 2006, POGO's Danielle Brian said:We do not know if Admiral Blair recused himself, or in any way affected the outcome of the IDA report. I would submit, however, that there is an appearance of a conflict of interest — given his substantial personal financial interest and his fiduciary responsibility to EDO—in the continued funding of the F-22A. This raises reasonable questions about the independence of IDA’s analysis. EDO is an important sub contractor on the F22 program, being the sole supplier for the F22 AMRAAM vertical ejection launcher. As a director who owned shares in the company, Dennis Blair arguably stood to gain from any decision by Congress to extend the F22 program.

On 27 July 2006, the Washington Post reported that Dennis Blair had revealed that he would resign from the board of EDO Corporation, 'as soon as possible,' because of the revelations. Dennis Blair then submitted his letter of resignation on 31 July 2006.

On 13 September 2006, the Washington Post reported that Dennis Blair had resigned his position as president of the Institute of Defense Analyses after its trustees had found that a conflict of interest had occurred. Blair was asked to give up his other paid positions with military contractors, but he refused and instead chose to give up his position of president of IDA.

On 20 September 2006, Rolling Stone magazine published an article on the story entitled "Another Tale of Waste and Fraud Unpunished".

On 28 September 2006, the New York Times reported that the F-22 multiyear contract had been approved by Congress despite opposition from Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush and the present and future chairmen of top U.S. Government military procurement committees. The New York Times suggested that the military industrial lobby that pushed the F-22 multiyear programme was more powerful than the elected officials who oversee government military spending including the President of the United States himself.

On 1 December 2006, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. Inspector General had found that although Blair had indeed violated IDA's conflict of interest policy by working for both EDO and IDA at the same time, his actions had not affected IDA's results on the F-22. It also found that Blair's involvement in the IDA F-22 MYP study was "minimal," with no involvement in conducting the analysis or preparing or reviewing the report before it was finalized.

Dennis C. Blair was replaced as an EDO director by General John A. Gordon (ret), who is closely linked to Blair. In 1996 Gordon replaced Blair as Associate Director for Military Affairs at the CIA, and in 2007 Blair and Gordon sit together on the council of SAFE, a corporate-military think tank tasked with finding solutions to the approaching energy crisis.

In January 2009 Blair became Director of National Intelligence under President Barack Obama making him the highest ranking intelligence official in the US Government.

EDO Director Leslie Kenne and the Joint Strike Fighter contract

Lieutenant General Leslie Kenne spent 32 years in the United States Air Force. In 1997 she was appointed Director of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, the U.S. Department of Defense's largest ever military acquisition program with a budget of $30 billion. Lockheed Martin is the prime JSF program contractor. Lockheed Martin awarded EDO a contract on January 9, 2002 for the design, development and manufacture of a suite of pneumatic weapon delivery systems for the JSF.

Kenne resigned from the USAF in September 2003 and shortly afterwards joined the board of directors of EDO Corporation.

EDO Director Paul Kern and allegations of war crimes at Abu Ghraib/EDO links with Titan Corporation

While still serving in the U.S. military General Paul Kern was appointed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to report on an internal investigation into the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse. In August 2004 he presented the Fay Report largely absolving the military hierarchy of blame for the torture and sexual abuse. Kern blamed the torture in part on the civilian contractors working with military intelligence services in the prison. One of the companies involved was identified as Titan Corporation, a contractor that supplies technology and 'civilian interrogators' to military intelligence. (The company has close links to the US intelligence community. Former CIA director James Woolsey has served on its board of directors.) However Kern did not advise that Titan Corporation should be charged with any criminal offence. Kern had been picked by Rumsfeld to investigate the Military Intelligence operations at Abu Ghraib after an earlier report which had implicated them in the torture. This earlier report was called the Taguba Report and because of its controversial reference to 'systematic abuse' was kept secret until it was leaked to Seymour Hersch of The New Yorker. In June 2007 Hersch published an article on Taguba who was forced to resign after submitting the report to Rumsfeld.

A few enlisted U.S. soldiers were eventually convicted, and imprisoned as a result of the investigations. Titan Corporation sacked one of their employees Adel Nakhla who had admitted holding down prisoners who were being tortured. Another Titan employee John Israel, a 'civilian interrogator/interpreter' identified by the Taguba Report as one of the four main people believed to have been responsible for the torture is suspected by some journalists including Robert Fisk of being an Israeli agent.

In April 2008 the Bush Administration were ordered to release a memo under the Freedom of Information Act that showed it had approved torture techniques in 2003 and given legal argument support for the use of torture techniques.

Kern retired shortly after the report came out and in January 2005 joined EDO Corporation as a director. Two of the other ten EDO Corporation directors who helped to elect him, James Roth and Robert M. Hanisee, were, and remain directors of Titan Corporation and as directors are open to charges of collusion and direct involvement in war crimes according to international law, but they have not been prosecuted by the United States legal system. Despite a lack of political will by the US Government to prosecute, Titan Corporation and CACI were nonetheless defendants in a civil action brought by victims of thetorture in Abu Ghraib Prison.

The U.S. Military Commissions Act 2006 effectively brought an end to such legal actions in the US.

In 2005, Titan Corp. admitted bribery charges after it paid $2 million into the re-election fund of the President of Benin, Mathieu Kérékou.

Kern is also a member of the Cohen Group which has as its CEO yet another EDO Corp director, Robert S. Tyrer.

Protest in the UK

Regular anti-war protests outside EDO (UK) factory

On 21 September 2006, protesters blockaded the EDO MBM factory in Brighton for several hours forcing the Managing Director Paul Hills to scale a security fence to enter the premises. He then used an angle grinder or wire cutters to cut a hole in the EDO's fence to let the employees in to work. The protesters left the scene without being arrested. On 16 September 2006, 100 protesters marched through Brighton to deliver a petition calling for the closure of EDO MBM to Brighton Town Hall. On 23 August 2006 two protesters climbed 40 feet onto the roof of EDO MBM Technology Ltd to unfurl a banner protesting the company's supply of weapons to Israel used in the Qana bombing in which 16 Lebanese children were killed. On 19 July 2006 protesters staged a 'Horrors of War' demonstration outside the Brighton factory recreating scenes of violence and mutilation that result from aerial bombardment. On the morning of 17 July 2006, three activists completely blockaded EDO's Brighton, United Kingdom subsidiary EDO MBM Technology Ltd in protest at EDO’s supply of weapons technology to the Israeli military being used to attack Gaza and in the then ongoing 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. These are just a few actions in an ongoing campaign of protest, civil disobedience and non-violent direct action against EDO in Brighton that began in 2004 and has come to be known as the Smash EDO campaign. There has been at least one demonstration a week outside the factory since 2004, and the number of protests against the EDO MBM since 2004 now numbers in the hundreds.

Smash EDO campaign

There have been numerous protests and direct actions since 2004 voicing the opinion that EDO MBM should close or convert its factory to civilian use. Protest actions have included road blockades, rooftop occupations, attempted weapons inspections, and three peace camps set up in woodland next to the factory. There have also been several large marches through Brighton city centre against EDO involving hundreds of protesters. In the process several arrests have been made by Sussex Police, mostly under public order legislation.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court brought into UK domestic law by the ICC Act, makes it an offence for UK citizens and residents to act in complicity with war crimes and any war of aggression that takes place anywhere in the world. In nearly all criminal trials, protesters against EDO MBM have argued that the company is acting unlawfully by assisting war crimes, in particular those committed by the UK/U.S. forces in Iraq and the Israeli forces in occupied Palestine. Magistrates in Brighton, have generally refused to acknowledge the argument, but have found other reasons to acquit the demonstrators to avoid the cases going to appeal courts. The ongoing campaign of protest, civil disobedience and non-violent direct action against EDO in Brighton, began in 2004 and came to be known as the Smash EDO campaign.

In March 2008 a feature length documentary about the Smash EDO campaign was released.See On The Verge

On 17 January 2009 protesters raided EDO's factory in Moulsecombe. Computers and filing cabinets where thrown out of windows and according to Sussex Police, "extensive damage was caused". Smash EDO said that their protestors had performed a "citizen's decommissioning" of the factory in response to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Sales to the Israel defense forces

Until April 2007 EDO MBM Technology Ltd advertised on their website that they 'actively manufacture' [468998]the Zero Retention Force Arming Unit, a component that includes as a 'current application' the 'IAF VER-2' bomb rack.

The removal of the 'actively manufacturing' reference came shortly after this page was presented as evidence in a Brighton Magistrates Court defence case of two protesters who had occupied the roof of the EDO MBM's premises to protest against EDO's complicity in the supply of equipment to Israel used in attacks on Lebanon.

The EDO MBM Zero Retention Force Arming Unit is an essential part of the Israeli Military Industries (IMI) VER-2 Bomb Rack, which is now made by a subsidiary of Elbit Systems Ltd in Israel."CyclonAviation Acquisition of IMI Aircraft: System Division Broadens In-House Capabilities" ^[468999], Israeli Ministry of Defense

VER-2

A Janes Defence Weekly (JDW) article, in June 1996, stated that "Israel’s F16s use VER-2vertical ejection bomb racks made by Israeli Military Industries (IMI)."

No evidence has been found that the VER-2 is used by any air force other than the Israeli Air Force. The VER-2 utilizes the EDO MBM Zero Retention Force Arming Unit as an essential part.

In a Lewes Crown Court sitting in Hove in December 2005, the then managing director of EDO MBM, David A. Jones, admitted under oath that he had removed references to the VER-2 from the EDO MBM website, after protests began in Brighton in 2004, to avoid controversy.

In court, Jones denied that the company had ever made the VER-2. Jones claimed that EDO MBM had simply ‘licenced’ the design for the VER-2 from Israeli Military Industries, and were only ‘advertising the capability to make it’ on their website.

Whatever the truth about the EDO MBM's involvement in the VER-2 it is clear from their website that at least until April 2007 EDO MBM did claim to 'actively manufacture' and appear to be the sole manufacturer of the Zero Retention Force Arming Unit, and the VER-2 utilizes the EDO MBM Zero Retention Force Arming Unit as an essential part. Protesters believe there has been a concerted attempt to hide this fact since 2004 when protests began,

The VER-2 is the 'main bomb rack' of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) F16. Israel has used the General Dynamics Lockheed Martin F16 as its premier fighter and airstrike weapon since the 1980s.

EDO MBM and UN Peace Messenger City Brighton and Hove

EDO MBM was originally targeted by protesters because it represents the most direct link between the Iraq War the Occupation of Palestine and the UK city of Brighton and Hove. The city council was the first in the country to be awarded United Nations Peace Messenger City status and yet it owns the land, Home Farm Business Park, on which EDO MBM's factory stands. EDO rent the property through a third party company, Europa Holdings Ltd, who hold a 125 year lease on the section of the park where EDO has its factory. Till early 2005 the same lease was held by Cheshire County Council.

EDO MBM provided essential arming and release components for the Raytheon Paveway 'smart munitions' used extensively in the shock and awe bombing by US/UK forces at the outset of the Iraq war. This led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. EDO MBM have been awarded a contract to provide components for the next generation Paveway IV 'fire and forget' smart bomb for the UK RAF.

As a result of the apparent contradiction of being a peace messenger city while being the landlord of an arms company, Brighton City Council in July 2005 came close to passing a motion of censure against EDO MBM. At the end of a full council meeting, in which debate on the motion was refused on grounds of time limits, the council eventually passed a watered down amendment to the motion that struck out all mention of the company and instead resolved to raise a UN peace flag above the town hall on one day each year . In March 2007, shortly after a Green Party councillor had taken on the role of 'peace messenger' from a member of the ruling Labour Party group, Brighton council announced they were scrapping the peace messenger city status for financial reasons.

Injunction case: EDO MBM v Campaign to Smash EDO & others/EDO MBM v Axworthy & others

The ongoing protests led EDO MBM and its employees, in April 2005, to seek a permanent high court injunction against 14 named protesters and two protest groups Smash EDO and Bombs out Of Brighton, on grounds of harassment. The intended injunction brought under Section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, applied to all protesters, not only those named in the court papers (who in any case strongly denied the allegations). The case created a public outcry because it was seen as a draconian, disproportionate and unjustified measure used by a U.S. arms company to suppress the freedom to protest of UK anti-war protesters. The company failed to gain a permanent injunction and dropped the action in early 2006, at a cost of several million dollars in legal costs.

Sussex Police collusion with EDO MBM

In the course of the high court battle a temporary or interim injunction was imposed on all protesters until a full trial could deal with the full facts of the case. The restrictions on protests and the aggressive strategy of Sussex Police brought about by this injunction, led to dozens of arrests and public order criminal charges against protesters. Two protesters spent up to a week in Lewes prison (on remand) as a result of arrests for alleged breaches of the injunction. The first for using a video camera to gather evidence of an assault on a protester by a security guard, and the second for stepping into a road opposite the factory. These charges carried a penalty of up to five years in prison on conviction. The cases would have had Crown Court jury trials if not dropped by the CPS. Others were arrested after allegations that they had disobeyed police orders, assaulted police, or obstructed them in the enforcement of the injunction.

After evidence came to light in the High Court that Sussex Police may have colluded with EDO Corporation to exaggerate the threat posed by demonstrators to the safety of employees, defence solicitors in related criminal cases began to investigate further. Then in what appeared to be a domino effect, the Crown Prosecution Service proceeded to drop all criminal charges, against all protesters, in all related cases, in an effort to protect the confidentiality of internal Sussex police documents which may have helped defendants prove such collusion had taken place. In July 2006 13 official complaints against Sussex Police were filed by protesters alleging police collusion with the arms company.

EDO (UK) Chairman Sir Robert Walmsley questioned

Sir Robert Walmsley is a director of EDO Corporation, and is Chairman of the Board of EDO (UK), which includes EDO MBM Technology Ltd in Brighton. On 1 August 2004 The Independent reported that Sir Robert Walmsley, Former Chief of Procurement at the UK Ministry of Defence, who retired in April 2003, had been called in by a UK government watchdog, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, to answer questions about his appointments to the board of Directors of General Dynamics and EDO Corporation.

General Dynamics was awarded the (₤1.7 billion) Prime Contractor and Systems Integration contract for the BOWMAN secure, digital voice and data communications system in September 2001, while Walmsley was still in charge of MOD procurement. On retirement in April 2003 Warmsley was offered a lucrative directorship of General Dynamics. A government watchdog committee advised Walmsley not to take up the post for one year after he had retired from the MOD, to avoid the appearance of a 'reward' being given by General Dynamics to Walmsley. Walmsley publicly joined General Dynamics in April 2004. He had by then, already become a non-executive director on the board of British Energy. His position at General Dynamics was described as a 'triumph' by the Daily Mail on 23 February 2004 as his appointment gave him the 'highest position achieved by a Briton at a US prime contractor.'

In The Independent report, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was said to have dismissed the watchdog recommendations that tighter rules were needed over such issues. In a later report published by The Independent on 26 December 2004, Blair was alleged to have helped 'mandarins' such as Walmsley, gain top jobs in the private sector, in defiance of anti-corruption committees. In May 2006, The Independent reported UK Government plans to scrap anti-corruption watchdog committees.

Sir Robert Walmsley and the Global Dominance Group

In 2006 Sir Robert Walmsley was named in a report 'The Global Dominance Group' produced by the US research group Project Censored. Walmsley is cited as one of 240 people considered as the world's top advocates of neo-conservative US global military domination.

Sir Robert Walmsley and the Al Yamamah arms scandal

Sir Robert Walmsley has also been linked to controversy over the Al Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia which was conducted in such secrecy that government National Audit Office reports into the deal remain classified. The deal has been associated with bribery and corruption allegations, and was the subject of a police investigation until dropped in controversial circumstances. Police were denied access to an NAO report because it is classified. A Daily Telegraph report on 7 July 2006 reported, that judging from a list documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), that there had been two classified NAO reports rather that just one as previously thought. The revelation came about through the title of one of the documents: "Letter from Sir Robert Walmsley, Chief of Defence Procurement to C&AG [NAO head Sir John Bourn] responding to recommendations in draft audit findings - 30 March 1998" which apparently refers to a draft of a second secret NAO report.

References

External links

• EDO Corporation site
• Smash EDO site