A House-proposed plan for a new missile defense system along the Eastern seaboard will be a major sticking point when House and Senate negotiators meet to hammer out a final version of the Pentagon's fiscal 2013 spending plan. 

“The goalposts are continually being moved,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Tuesday.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will testify against a treaty supported by his old boss and the oil-and-gas industries. 

The Topline: Outrage over a Russian sale of attack helicopters to Syria is being felt in Congress, where senators are placing holds on Defense Department employees and vowing consequences for Moscow if it continues to arm Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s accusation Tuesday that Russia had supplied Syria with attack helicopters quickly reverberated on Capitol Hill, where many senators are already up in arms about over what they say is inaction by the Obama administration to intervene in Syria.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) placed a hold on the Army’s nominee to become top weapons buyer, Heidi Shyu, over the Pentagon’s contract with Russian arms company Rosoboronexport, which is also allegedly providing Syrian arms to Assad’s forces.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said in an MSNBC interview that President Obama should take a hard line with Russian President Vladmir Putin and make clear “there are going to be grave consequences to our relationship if they continue” to supply Syrian arms.

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The fight stems from deep disagreement over the best way to get to the bottom of recent national security leaks.

Military planners have used more expensive supply routes through Central Asia since an errant airstrike killed Pakistani troops in November.

If the Pentagon is forced to include war funds to a raft of automatic budget cuts set for next year, it could cripple a number of key Pentagon accounts already slated for massive reductions over the next decade. 

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday that the Pentagon has ordered all of the services to undertake reviews of their mental health diagnoses over the past decade, further expanding a review amid a scandal involving changed PTSD diagnoses.

Panetta said at a Senate hearing that he was expanding the mental health review beyond the Army, which earlier this month announced details of a service-wide examination going back a decade to 2001.

“What I've asked is the other service chiefs to implement the same approach that the Army's taken here,” Panetta said.

“He’s a United States senator — he can certainly say what he wants," Feinstein said. "I don’t happen to agree."