Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla) demanded that the Army hold a competition now to replace the M-4 riffles used by soldiers rather than waiting until 2014.

Coburn said lives are being lost because the government has refused to provide more adequate weapons to those fighting overseas.

The Obama administration is unleashing a full court press for the Senate to pass cybersecurity legislation this week as the prospects for moving a bill before the August recess are flagging.

A pair of top defense officials on Wednesday argued that the legislation is needed to protect computer systems connected to critical infrastructure -- such as the electric grid or transportation systems -- from being hit by a crippling cyberattack.

President Obama's counterterrorism adviser John Brennan warned in a statement that "the risks to our nation our real and immediate" and called on the Senate to pass Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-Conn.) Cybersecurity Act "to give our cybersecurity professionals the tools they need to keep the nation safe.”

The Arizona senator said he was "puzzled" senior Obama officials had not been interviewed by investigators.

Senate Armed Services ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.) slammed the White House's efforts to stop the unauthorized release of classified information, reiterating his call for the appointment of a special counsel to plug those leaks. 

"This crackdown is going nowhere fast," McCain said during a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday. 

Sequestration would force the Pentagon to scale back new defense strategy, a top Defense official told House lawmakers Wednesday. 

A bipartisan group of senators is looking to ensure that U.S.-Afghan relations do not fall by the wayside once thousands of U.S. troops begin to rotate out of the country over the next two years. 

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said late Tuesday that by allowing billions of dollars in defense spending cuts, President Obama is turning the U.S. military into the equivalent of the 1962 New York Mets, "a team that set the standard for ineptitude in professional sports."

"The New York Mets in 1962 lost 120 out of 162 games," Bishop said. As an example of the Mets' ineptitude, Bishop recounted the time when Marvelous Marv Throneberry, who played first base for the Mets that year, hit a triple but was later called out for not tagging second base.

“The president doesn’t want people reading about pink slips in the weeks before his election," Senate Minority Leader McConnell said.

The Topline: Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Jeffrey Zients said Tuesday that the Obama administration would exempt military personnel accounts from sequestration, a move that will help set the stage for Wednesday’s showdown with the House Armed Services Committee.

Zients issued two memos on sequestration Tuesday before he’s set to join Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter to testify before the committee Wednesday morning. One said that military personnel costs were exempted from sequester, a move that Obama was expected to make, and the other said that OMB officials would begin consulting with agencies about the sequester.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) and other Republicans on the committee are unlikely to be impressed, however, as they have hammered the Pentagon and administration for not releasing details or planning for the $500 billion, 10-year defense cuts that take effect Jan. 2.

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