Leon Panetta

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is laying out a grim list of spending cuts the Pentagon will have to make in the coming weeks that he says will seriously damage the country's economy and degrade the military's ability to respond to a crisis...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senior defense officials say Pentagon chief Leon Panetta is removing the military's ban on women serving in combat, opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after more than a decade at war...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit to consult with top commanders and President Hamid Karzai. The visit Wednesday comes at a difficult juncture in the Western coalition's efforts to shift more security responsibilities to Afghan forces so the combat mission can end in 2014...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is criticizing the first round of changes that lawmakers have made in President Barack Obama's proposed military budget. Testifying Wednesday in the Senate, Panetta said the versions of the defense budget that have emerged from the House and the Senate Armed Services Committee would force him to find money to maintain old weapons, aircraft and ships