By Charles Hoskinson

HOUSE AND SENATE CONFEREES ARE HOPING to reach agreement today on a final version of the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, congressional sources tell us, with an eye toward sending it to Obama by the end of next week.

DETAILS OF WHAT WILL BE IN THE BILL are still being worked out, and we hope to have more for you on that on Monday. Some issues we’re watching: detainees (of course), gay marriage, and Iran sanctions, which Josh Rogin reports in Foreign Policy’s The Cable blog is the subject of an intense lobbying campaign by the administration. Read it here: http://bit.ly/v0axNT

ANOTHER LOBBYING CAMPAIGN HAS FOCUSED on GOP-crafted provisions in the House bill aimed at preventing DOD from recognizing gay marriage after the ending of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban earlier this year. They’re not in the Senate bill and senators have shown no interest in revisiting that debate, but activists are concerned. In a letter, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network is asking conferees to drop those provisions. See it here: http://politi.co/rRrxUq

WE’RE ALSO WATCHING TO SEE IF GOP PROVISIONS in the House bill aimed at preventing concessions to Russia on missile defense will survive conference now that the reset button appears to have broken. After Secretary of State Clinton insisted Thursday in Brussels that the United States would go ahead with plans for a NATO missile defense shield, the Russians again threatened to counter it with their own missiles, and have also put NATO supply lines to Afghanistan at risk in the controversy. http://bit.ly/vqboKE

RUSSIA’S TOUGH TALK – which includes a threat to withdraw from the New START deal if NATO doesn’t abandon its missile defense plans – has bolstered Republican claims that the Obama administration failed to nail down a common understanding on missile defense in the treaty talks. In Brussels, Clinton made clear that “our planned system will not and cannot threaten Russia’s strategic deterrent.” But the Russians clearly don’t agree, and are holding one of Obama’s signature achievements hostage to get U.S. concessions on the issue.

Go to POLITICO Morning Defense Now >> http://www.politico.com/morningdefense