Pentagon

WASHINGTON - "Unthinkable," declares Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. "A disaster," predicts Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta. "Devastating," agrees Sen. John McCain. "Deeply destructive," warns President Obama. America's longest wars are finally ending, but politicians from both parties worry about the strange new peril facing the Pentagon: impending automatic budget cuts. Unless Congress and the White House reach a compromise, Pentagon spending will be slashed by $54 billion on Jan. 2. That could force layoffs of 100,000 Defense Department civilian employees, devastate vast parts of the defense industry, and affect purchases of ships, planes and almost everything else the world's largest military buys.

BRISTOW, Va. - Last year, Army Col. Ellen Haring thought she was finally getting her dream job. She was selected to supervise female soldiers who search and interview Afghan women in combat zones for special operations units. Haring spent three months training at Ft. Bragg, N.C. Then, just before she was to deploy to Afghanistan, she got a phone call from a staff officer. "Ma'am, we don't think you're qualified," she recalled him saying. The job went to a lower-ranking male officer.

Mitt Romney may have won the first presidential debate, but what stuck in many people's minds was his threat to fire Big Bird. Apparently, Romney thinks America's debt problem can be fixed by picking up pennies along Sesame Street. Pressed to explain how he would balance the federal budget while cutting trillions of dollars in taxes, the allegedly masterful debater offered up just two specifics: He would repeal “Obamacare” (even though the Congressional Budget Office says the healthcare act actually reduces deficit spending)

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Doug Sterner drives from his cluttered apartment here to the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., carrying a portable photocopier and a belief in American heroes. Inside the Navy archives, he flips through thousands of typed index cards detailing bravery in battle. Sterner pulls out a card and starts reading. He's mesmerized by this story: Charles Valentine August, a Navy pilot who shot down two enemy planes in World War II, was later shot down himself and captured in North Africa.

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the fourth publisher of the New York Times, who made history with his decision to publish the Pentagon Papers and revived the "Good Gray Lady" of print journalism with a radical redesign that set a new standard, has died. He was 86. His death Saturday at his home in Southampton, N.Y., after a long illness, was announced by his son and the current publisher, Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. Widely known by the nickname Punch, the senior Sulzberger was publisher of the Times from 1963 to 1992 and chairman and chief executive of the parent company from 1973 to 1997.

In another wallop to Southern California's aerospace industry, defense giant Northrop Grumman Corp. said it is preparing to trim its payroll by nearly 600 workers. Responding to billions of dollars in proposed Pentagon budget cuts, Northrop confirmed it has accepted buyouts from about 590 employees in its aerospace division. Most employees participating in the voluntary buyout program, which began in July, will leave by the end of September. The rest will remain as long as Dec. 14. Photos: Northrop history in L.A. This is the latest workforce reduction at Northrop's operations in Southern California - home to the vast majority of the 21,000 employees in its aerospace division.

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Leon Panetta attended a remembrance ceremony in the Pentagon's center courtyard Tuesday to mark the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “Even as we mark 11 years since that horrible day, we know it will be forever engrained in our souls, in our hearts, as members of the Pentagon family, and as Americans,” Panetta said, paying tribute to the 184 people who lost their lives at the Pentagon that morning. “They had done nothing, nothing to deserve such a cruel fate.

The Pentagon said Monday that a prisoner died at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility on Saturday, the ninth fatality at the prison for terrorism suspects since it opened more than a decade ago. Authorities were withholding the name, nationality and age of the detainee pending notification of his family, according to a statement issued by Joint Task Force Guantanamo at the U.S. naval base in southern Cuba. An autopsy was planned, the statement said, and there was no immediate report on the suspected cause of death.

A foreign terrorism suspect with a record of disciplinary infractions has died at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, the ninth fatality since the prison opened more than a decade ago, the Pentagon announced Monday. The name, nationality and age of the detainee were withheld pending notification of his family and home country, according to a statement issued by Joint Task Force Guantanamo. An autopsy was planned and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service was investigating the circumstances of the man's death, the statement said.

WASHINGTON  - The Pentagon said Tuesday that a former Navy SEAL's account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden contains classified information, intensifying a dispute with the author over whether the book harmed national security. Defense Department spokesman George Little said that an examination of the book, “No Easy Day,” revealed “sensitive and classified information,” and he reiterated that author Matt Bissonnette, writing under the pen name Mark Owen, violated nondisclosure agreements by failing to submit it for government review before it went on sale this week.