IS HE KIDDING? HIS COUNTERPART, NAPALITANO/INCOMPITANO CAN’T PROTECT THE U.S. BOARDERS AND SHE HAS BILLIONS OF $$ AT HER FINGERTIPS!
PANETTA ALSO TOLD REPORTERS HE’S FRUSTRATED with Pakistan’s inability to prevent cross-border attacks by Islamist militant groups such as the Haqqani network, and warned that the United States would not allow them to continue. “The message they need to know is: we’re going to do everything we can to defend our forces,” he said. Read more here: http://usat.ly/qsCGj4
“FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 100 YEARS we do not have a design team working on a new manned airplane,” said Jim Albaugh, Boeing’s executive vice president, who assured skeptical reporters that it is indeed possible to forget how to do that if you don’t have engineers with the right experience. “We know we’re not going to have a lot of new starts, but there’s no reason why there can’t be small investments to keep design teams together.”

CONCERNS ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF DOD BUDGET CUTS on the industrial base are prompting defense manufacturers to join in lobbying the supercommittee against further cuts.

THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION on Wednesday rolled out the “Second to None” campaign aimed at highlighting the economic impact of defense cuts. Leaders of the group met with Panetta on Tuesday and are seeking out supercommittee members to make their case.

THE ARGUMENT – The defense industry accounts for 2.9 million jobs, of which hundreds of thousands are at risk, particularly the skilled jobs needed to design and build high-tech weapons systems. A considerable amount of intellectual capital already has been lost due to previous cuts, and the United States has become a net importer of technology, rather than an exporter.

TREATIES ARE SUPPOSED TO SOLVE DISPUTES, NOT CREATE THEM. But the missile defense provisions in the New START deal have sparked a three-way tug-of-war between the Obama administration, the Russian government and congressional Republicans. Our story is here: http://politi.co/pnsGQq

PANETTA’S COMMENTS ECHOED THOSE OF ALLEN and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker in Kabul in blaming the Haqqani network for Tuesday’s attack on the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters that killed 16 people, including five Afghan policemen.

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