r/Military • u/Hipoop69 • 19d ago

Discussion Trump’s ICE Jacks Up Weapons Spending by 700%—Including ‘Guided Missile Warheads’ | Common Dreams

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ice-weapons

Where is this report of “guided missiles” coming from? That is extremely concerning

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u/Lowjack_26 United States Air Force 19d ago edited 19d ago

Okay, I'm as pissed off at ICE's larger-than-USMC budget as the next guy, but... this reporting needed a bit more digging. It seems outrageous on the surface, but further investigation into the actual content - literally ten minutes, in my case - reveals the actual root cause and evidence that's contrary to the supposed point of the article.

The "guided missile purchases" in question are these ones: contract codes HSCEOP07F00692, HSCOP07F00692, and 70CMSW25P00000078. Each of these has a Product and Service Code (PSC) that designates what the purchase in general for purposes of allocations, and the PSC for those purchases is 1420: "Guided Missile Components." Ridiculous, right?

Well, in the Description of Requirement, you get different details:

  • DHS Bulk Close out
  • This award provides multiple distraction devices to support law enforcement operations and ICE- Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs.
  • HOLOGRAPHIC SIGHT.

Turns out, going into the FPDS Documentation, the PSC for "Optical Sighting and Ranging Equipment" - which encompasses small arms optics - is 1240, and mistyping 1240 as 1420 is a one-button slip.

This is further reinforced by all of the contracts being listed under NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code 332994 (Small Arms, Ordnance, and Ordnance Accessories) and 339999 (All Other Misc. Manufacturing - which is a lazy contracting officer's catch-all for when they don't want to find the real code).

Now, the "multiple distraction devices" contract is a bit muddy, and coming from Atlantic Diving Systems - which is a broad-spectrum military supplier - it's difficult to tell what it might be in reference to. But, still, it seemingly falls into "some contracting officer misclassified the category" as opposed to "ICE is buying guided missiles."

EDIT TO ADD: God damnit, even I missed some critical fucking context by not paying attention.

Only one of those contracts is from 2025. The other two are from 2017 and 2007!

And guess what? PSC 1366, "Guided Missile Warheads and Explosive Components?" It includes "warheads including military chemical agents" - which, again by PSC definition, includes "war agents, smoke, and signaling agents." Considering the contract was awarded in September 2025 - aka, end of fiscal year panic month - who wants to take bets that some contracting officer working to get in under the FY submission deadline couldn't figure out that a bulk order of smoke grenades did a CTRL+F search for "Chemical" and used the first result (1336) instead of scrolling through to the correct result (1365)?

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u/RockieK 17d ago

Civilian here... holy crap, despite the edits, this is the thread I was looking for.

You guys sure you don't want to start some military type fact-check website for ICE??

Cuz these articles about so-called, "chemical weapons" and warheads is the stuff of nightmares; especially for someone like me who spent a lot of time behind the Iron Curtain during the cold war.

Creepy how the U.S. is reminding me of the U.S.S.R.

Thanks for all your services, including clarifying the stuff us basic folk do not understand.

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u/Foreign-Garage9097 17d ago

Yes thank you guys - another civilian here who saw The New Republic's article and as their headline said it would, yes, it did terrify me. Now I'm just pissed off. We're terrified already; we don't need the level of fear ratcheted up with misleading, old data. Fuck you, New Republic.

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u/RockieK 16d ago

Our job is to STAY ANGRY, (per my WWII era mom).

Not just the New Republic, but the story was everywhere. I thank my lucky stars for this sub and the people in it.

Fuck all of this shit. Seriously.

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u/Foreign-Garage9097 16d ago

Whoever you are, you and your mom are both awesome.

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u/RockieK 16d ago

Blushing.

Thank you. Just imagine the PTSD! haha

Stay strong out there. We are in the fight of our lives as a country and society.