Iranian officials are once again threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz as sanctions against the country continue to bite at Iran’s economy.

Iranian news agencies have reported several statements from military and political officials that Iran could close the strait, a key oil pipeline in the Middle East.

“The control of the Persian Gulf region is in Iran’s hands,” said Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, according to Iran’s Mehr News Agency.

The House will vote on the defense appropriations bill this week as the warnings over the threat of $500 billion in defense cuts continue to get louder on Capitol Hill.

House Republicans are expected to attack Democrats and President Obama over sequestration during the debate on the 2013 defense appropriations bill, which will likely take several days of votes to wade through potentially hundreds of amendments.

The House is also planning to vote on a bill that would require reports from the Obama administration explaining how the sequester cuts would be implemented. The bill received a seal of approval from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) Friday.

And the House Armed Services Committee is holding a high-profile hearing with the chief executives of some of the biggest defense contractors, where they are expected to lay out how devastating the cuts would be to the defense industrial base.

Republicans opened up a two-pronged offensive Friday, seeking to blame Obama for the looming $500 billion reduction in defense spending.

The Pentagon is on the offensive against African terror groups, establishing the template for the next-generation of U.S.-led counterterrorism operations.

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn is pushing the FBI to publicly disclose the findings from an internal bureau review of its response to the 2009 shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) plans to sign onto a letter being crafted by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) in opposition to a United Nations Arms Treaty over the Second Amendment.

Graham and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), two of the biggest defense hawks in the Senate, had not taken a position on the treaty Thursday, amid a lobbying campaign by the National Rifle Association against it over the potential to include “civilian arms” in the treaty.

The treaty is currently being negotiated in New York.

Congressional leaders accused President Obama in a letter of holding defense and domestic spending “hostage” in order to raise taxes.

Syrian forces began moving vast stockpiles of chemical weapons out of storage on Friday, sparking concern in Washington on whether the weapon could be unleashed against rebel forces in the country. 

Presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney attacked President Obama over $500 billion in defense cuts as Obama made a campaign stop in Virginia, a military-heavy state.

Romney wrote a letter to the president that appeared in The Virginian-Pilot Friday accusing Obama of allowing the automatic defense cuts to take effect, despite the damage they will do to the military and to veterans.