Shipyard repays $9.2 million to U.S. government to settle overbilling
One of the nation’s largest military shipyards is paying $9.2 million back to the federal government in an overbilling settlement.
The U.S. Justice Department announced the settlement Aug. 26 with Huntington Ingalls Industries. The Newport News, Va., company operates the 10,000-employee Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi.
The settlement resolves allegations that Huntington Ingalls charged labor costs to contracts for which work wasn’t actually done, and charged the government as if supervisors had dived to work on ship hulls, or even for dives that never happened. The charges were made to U.S. Navy and Coast Guard contracts.
The allegations were originally brought on behalf of the government by a former Huntington Ingalls employee named Byron Faulkner. Under federal law, he’ll get $1.6 million.
Federal prosecutors say problems ran from 2003 to 2015. AP
Top U.S. military officer notes ‘difficult issues’ with China
The top U.S. military officer told a top Chinese general Aug. 15 that the U.S. and China have “many difficult issues” to work through, but that he hoped meetings between the sides this week will lead to progress.
Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the remarks at the opening of a meeting with Fang Fenghui, chief of the People’s Liberation Army’s joint staff department.
U.S. officials say Dunford’s visit aims to create a mechanism for improving communication between the sides, especially on sensitive issues such as North Korea.
Dunford is visiting South Korea, Japan and China after a week in which President Donald Trump said he was ready to unleash “fire and fury” if North Korea continued to threaten the U.S.
Fang said Dunford’s visit was a key part of efforts to expand dialogue between the U.S. and China as agreed by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping when they met earlier this year.
To that end, China has arranged a series of important meetings and visits to help Dunford “know more about our military, (boost) our cooperation and build up our friendship,” Fang said.
Dunford responded that the U.S. considered the meetings important to making progress on areas of disagreement, without citing any specific examples.
“I think here, we have to be honest — we have many, many difficult issues where we don’t necessarily share the same perspective,” Dunford said.
“I know we share one thing: We share a commitment to work through these difficult issues,” he added, saying that with the guidance of political leaders “we are going to make some progress over the next few days.”
While the sides agreed to establish a hotline between the Pentagon and China’s defense ministry several years ago, that mechanism has never gone into operation. U.S. officials say they’ve attempted to use it, but that the Chinese side has never answered their requests. AP
U.S. Navy reports another tense encounter with an Iran drone
An unarmed Iranian drone shadowed a U.S. aircraft carrier at night and came close enough to F-18 fighter jets to put the lives of American pilots at risk, the Navy said Aug. 15, reporting the second such tense encounter within a week. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said the U.S. safety concerns were unfounded.
The Iranian Sadegh drone flew without any warning lights Aug. 13 while shadowing the USS Nimitz, said Lt. Ian McConnaughey, a spokesman for the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet.
The drone did not respond to repeated radio calls and came within 1,000 feet (300 meters) of U.S. fighters, he said.
That “created a dangerous situation with the potential for collision and is not in keeping with international maritime customs and laws,” McConnaughey said in a statement.
The drone was unarmed, the lieutenant said, though that model can carry missiles.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard issued a statement early Tuesday saying their drones are guided “accurately and professionally,” dismissing the U.S. Navy’s concerns as “unfounded.”
In a similar encounter Aug. 8, the Navy said an Iranian drone came within 100 feet (30 meters) of an F-18 preparing to land on the Nimitz. Iranian vessels and U.S. warships have also had tense encounters in recent months.
President Donald Trump has threatened to renegotiate the nuclear deal struck by his predecessor amid new sanctions targeting Iran over its ballistic missile tests.
So far this year, the Navy has recorded 14 instances of what it describes as “unsafe and/or unprofessional” interactions with Iranians forces. It recorded 35 in 2016 and 23 in 2015.
The incidents at sea almost always involved the Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that reports only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Some analysts believe the incidents are meant in part to squeeze moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s administration after the 2015 nuclear deal.
Of the incidents at sea last year, the worst involved Iranian forces capturing and holding overnight 10 U.S. sailors who strayed into the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.
Iranian forces in turn accuse the U.S. Navy of unprofessional behavior, especially in the Strait of Hormuz, the mouth of the Persian Gulf, through which a third of all oil traded by sea passes. AP