Journalicious Dots from Switzerland

¶1. (SBU) Conoff contacted Rheinmetall Canada headquarters in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. All officials contacted were helpful and forthcoming, and though they had not been contacted by the Mission in the past, understood the purpose of our questions.

¶2. Natalie Nantel, Transport Coordinator, confirmed that the order had been placed, and that the product was destined for the Royal Dutch Army. However, she said that the license number in Ref A, 05-050048064, may have been changed because of an error in the initial license application. The project described in reftel requires “FGBAD Consoles” rather than “ASRAD Consoles” necessitating a change in the order to U.S. supplier Vicor Corporation.

¶2. Conoff also spoke to Pierre Lord, Security Coordinator and Raymond Houle, Senior Procurement Manager and ITAR Coordinator. Lord said that the company has applied for and been granted several DTCC Licenses over the last twenty years, and is fully aware of the restrictions on the export of U.S. defense articles. He said that the facility in St-Jean is “NATO-Secret” certified for secure handling of defense technology.

¶3. Houle said that Rheinmetall Canada’s role in the transaction is to assemble and integrate the U.S. components into the consoles. These consoles would then be transferred to EADS in Germany, who would install the consoles into the armored personnel vehicles. The vehicles would then be transferred to the Dutch. Under ideal circumstances, Houle said, the U.S. technology would not have to be handled by the other three intermediate consignees: Krauss-Maffei Wegman, Kongsberg, and Aselsan. Rheinmetall added them to their license application in case it was necessary for any of them to make a modification or perform testing after the U.S. technology was installed into the vehicle. Krauss-Maffei Wegman is the manufacturer of the basic vehicle. Normally, the vehicle would be shipped from Krauss-Maffei Wegman to Kongsberg defense, where a radar system would be installed, and then shipped to EADS. EADS would then install Rheinmetall’s console, with U.S. technology, completing the vehicle for the Dutch Royal Army. Aselsan, a company that EADS uses for testing of its products, was also included, so that testing could be performed at their facility, if necessary, without changes to the license.

¶4. Rheinmetall Canada, formerly OERLIKON Contraves Canada, supplies defense hardware and software mainly to the Canadian Forces, but also to other military customers, such as France, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard. Rheinmetall Canada has also contracted with the Port of Dakar, Senegal to upgrade the security of the country’s main commercial port. The company has been in business since 1986.

¶4. Post was not able to arrange a site visit in time for this report. A site visit will be arranged at the earliest opportunity.

MARSHALL

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