Latinos In America

But this time, something is different.

Forced spending cuts: The latest

As congressional leaders met in the White House on Friday for what was little more than a photo op on the day forced budget cuts go into effect, this time there are no 11th-hour negotiations to save the day. There is no last-minute effort to call in Vice President Joe Biden on behalf of Democrats or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on behalf of Republicans to get things back on track.

Instead, for the past few weeks, all sides — the White House and Congress, Democrats and Republicans — have done nothing but squabble like a dysfunctional married couple about who is responsible for the bad policy that is the forced budget cuts, all while avoiding dealing with the real issues.

National leaders’ apparent lack of interest in working out an alternative to the looming cuts is symbolized by the meeting Friday morning at the White House. As if to check off the “we did everything we could” box, say couples counselors, President Obama and congressional leaders from both parties met to show that they met — even though earlier this week, Obama told Hill leaders they need to be “ready to talk solutions.”

Countdown to cuts: A matter of hours

If it feels like a child helplessly watching bickering parents repeat a dysfunctional cycle of disagreement, recrimination and contempt while not addressing the root cause of what’s wrong in their relationship, there’s good reason.

“They’ve lost sight of the big picture because they’re so determined to be right and to win the argument, and that’s what happens with couples,” said Sharon Rivkin, a California-based marriage counselor and author of “Breaking the Argument Cycle.”

The need to be right, shaming and blaming are the three major obstacles to a healthy relationship, Rivkin said. “And that’s exactly what they’re doing — the Democrats and the Republicans are doing with each other. They’re attacking and defending and really just want to be right. And are not looking at the impact that it’s going to have on children and the economy and the country.”

Spending cuts: When they’ll really bite

In addition to the contempt that seems to be building on both sides, Rivkin flagged misdirected disagreement as another sign that the relationship between Democrats and Republicans has become dysfunctional to the point of needing therapy.

“They’re arguing about the wrong things, and that’s what happens in couples: You’re not even arguing about what’s really going on. You’re just arguing to win,” Rivkin said.

“They should be talking about economic growth and how to reduce the budget deficit and how they can be fair,” the therapist observed. Instead, both sides are squabbling over who originally had the idea for the forced spending cuts. “You can’t win in an argument like that, because it’s he said, she said, and they’re not getting to the root of the issues.”

Teachers: How will you be affected?

Then there is Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, a couple that seems to have the most strained relationship in a dysfunctional Washington. Rivkin says that if the two men came to her for therapy, she’d first listen to their gripes about one another. “And then I’d try to make it more human” by getting away from their superficial disagreements and appealing to their shared concern for the well-being of the country.

“If I talked to them long enough, there’s got to be something that they agree on,” Rivkin said, adding that finding a point of agreement in a quarrelling couple is “very powerful.”

Rivkin also said that Boehner’s recent announcement that he will no longer negotiate directly with Obama is another sign that the relationship between the two men is in serious trouble.

“The healthiest relationships are the ones where you can negotiate,” the marriage counselor said, “where you feel safe to put everything out there.”

Laurie Puhn, a couples mediator and author of “Fight Less, Love More,” likens Friday’s meeting at the White House to a couple’s mediation session where both spouses come into the room but refuse to speak.

“OK,” Puhn said, “you got the image. You can check off your list (that) you did couples mediation, but clearly nothing could possibly be accomplished.”

Like a married couple desperately in need of outside help to understand and resolve their differences, Puhn noted, “each political party — the individuals within them — is all about what I want. Here’s what I want. Here’s what I need. Here’s what I won’t do. Here’s what I won’t give up. Everybody’s making demands, and they’re each just completely thinking about themselves.”

In mediation, Puhn tries to avoid the personal acrimony between a couple and instead focus on identifying a list of underlying issues or concerns in their relationship. Then she focuses on areas of agreement about those issues and sets those aside so the couple can focus on the areas of disagreement.

“You narrow it down … and what you’re left with are the sticking points,” Puhn said. Then the task becomes avoiding focusing on a single sticking point and, instead, finding some give-and-take amongst all the sticking points.

“Most of the time, people can’t identify their actual problems,” Puhn said of her work with distressed couples. “And I think that’s what we see between the president and the speaker.”

Obama and Boehner and both political parties seem to be suffering from another affliction Puhn sees in struggling couples. “If we’re going to fight, let’s have a good fight. … Let’s make our goal in a fight to reach a solution. The goal is not to win … not to persuade your mate.”

As a mediator, Puhn said, much of what she does is to control the environment where a couple is brainstorming tradeoffs between their sticking points on critical issues so that one spouse isn’t given the opportunity to see the other’s willingness to compromise as leverage or weakness. In so doing, Puhn often acts as a substitute for the trust between the couple that has broken down by the time they seek her help.

Puhn said Obama and Boehner and Democrats and Republicans in Washington “absolutely” need a mediator whom both sides trust who can get them refocused from their entrenched positions to their underlying interests and goals.

“As a politician, you should be able to understand and mediate through what your interests are,” Puhn said of Friday’s meeting. “And if you really can’t move away from the words and the specific rules on the table and the (governmental) programs you’re discussing, what it means is that you’re truly just focused on what it’s going to look like — what the image is of whatever you agree to.”

Suffering from sequester burnout? You’re not alone

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A senior Republican senator said on Sunday that party colleagues will drop tactics to delay a vote on former Senator Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary, saying that President Barack Obama’s nominee likely has sufficient support to be confirmed into this key post.

“We will have a vote when we get back, and I am confident that Senator Hagel will probably have the votes necessary to be confirmed as the secretary of defense,” Arizona Senator John McCain, who has led the opposition against his former Republican colleague, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.

Democrats, who control the Senate, have scheduled a vote for February 26, after members return from a week-long recess. Republicans held up the nomination last week in a delay characterized as the first time the Senate had used a procedural tactic called a filibuster to block a defense nominee.

With Democrats holding 55 votes in the 100-seat Senate, Hagel’s nomination is expected to win the simple majority of 51 votes needed for his confirmation to become the civilian leader at the Pentagon, once such a vote is allowed.

If confirmed, Hagel, a 66-year old decorated Vietnam War veteran, would replace 74-year-old Leon Panetta.

Hagel, who broke from his party as a senator by opposing former President George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq War, has faced withering criticism from Republicans since Obama nominated him on January 7 to be the defense secretary.

Some Republicans have questioned if Hagel is sufficiently supportive of Israel, tough enough on Iran or capable of leading the Pentagon. McCain continued on Sunday to voice concern.

“I don’t believe he is qualified. But I don’t believe we should hold up his nomination any further because I think it is a reasonable amount of time to have questions answered.”

(Reporting By Alister Bull; Editing by Philip Barbara)

But the same advocates, including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, say the president should use the power of the executive branch to further those aims rather than pursuing a congressional strategy.

Melinda Pierce, legislative director for the Sierra Club, pushed the president to focus more on executive orders and regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency than on legislation.

“Congress is a place where good ideas go to die,” she said. “There is a tremendous amount that his administration can do without Congress. He has the authority; he doesn’t have to wait for Congress.”

Eric Pooley, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund, told CNN that while “serious climate legislation isn’t in the cards this year” the White House understands that congressional “legislation is not the only way to make progress.”

CNN Poll: Do Americans agree with Obama on climate change and immigration?

“There is a clear plan of action here,” Pooley said. “It is time to just get started with the rule-making, which is a process that gives ample time for give and take between the administration and industry.”

Included in the list of executive actions that Pierce and others hope for are curbing carbon emissions among existing power plants, not just new plants, and mandating high efficiency standards to larger trucks and longer haul vehicles.

Those sort of executive branch actions are similar to what Obama pushed for during his first term.

In 2011, the EPA issued new standards on toxic pollutants and mercury emissions from coal power plants. Obama also finalized regulations requiring that passenger cars and trucks nearly double their fuel efficiency by 2025.

Bob Keefe, spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Obama’s first term was successful on environmental issues because of those actions. However, he acknowledged that he would have liked to have seen more from the president.

“You take what you can get and you hope for more,” Keefe said. “I think the president is recognizing this in his speech.”

Why 2013 could be a game-changer on climate

In a lengthy paragraph in his address on Monday, Obama said, “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries — we must claim its promise.”

The president made little mention of climate policy in his 2012 campaign and outlined little, if any, specific climate policy plans for his second term.

Obama’s climate policies, specifically Energy Department loan and grant programs for developing advanced energy technologies, were used against him on the campaign trail following the bankruptcy of Solyndra, which received economic stimulus money.

Attack ads featured a visit Obama made to the California solar panel manufacturer and Republican candidate Mitt Romney used the bankruptcy to highlight what Republicans believed were misspent taxpayer funds on unproven energy projects.

Pooley called this time period — the last two years of Obama’s first term — the “two years of silence,” when very little talk was devoted to climate change.

It wasn’t until Superstorm Sandy, an extraordinary confluence of powerful weather systems, devastated coastal New York and New Jersey in late October that the issue of climate change made an impact on the political season.

Obama’s speech ties current issues to founding principles

Before the storm hit, the last time both candidates mentioned the issue in any substantive manner was in written statements to a science organization in September.

“Sandy put this thing back on the agenda with an vengeance and restarted a national climate conversation,” Pooley said. “That is the reality, that is what reminded everybody that this issue is not going away, that we need to deal with it.”

Next step: Obama’s State of the Union speech on February 12.

Pooley said he has “every reason to suspect” that Obama is going to unveil more detail in that speech about “what he is going to do.”

Story By: by Alan Greenblatt

Daniel Day-Lewis (center) portrays Abraham Lincoln in the film Lincoln, which might leave audiences feeling a little more hopeful about the state of today’s Congress.

Lincoln may not be a political film for the ages, but it’s certainly a movie that speaks to our own time.

Although the movie centers on the abolition of slavery, Lincoln taps into one of the deepest desires of our historical moment — the desire for politicians in Washington to get their acts together and compromise to succeed in passing major legislation.

“People like the idea of the system working,” says John Powers, a critic for Vogue and NPR’s Fresh Air. “In terms of the public fantasy, it’s the perfect one for the Obama age because you have this tall, principled guy dealing with all these crazies who all come together to get important things done.”

Lincoln was garlanded with 12 Oscar nominations on Thursday, including best picture. Daniel Day-Lewis was nominated for his portrayal of President Abraham Lincoln, as was Steven Spielberg for his direction.

The movie hasn’t been a smash hit, but it’s taken in $145 million at U.S. box offices — not bad for a talky, mostly interior historical epic.

In ‘Django’ And ‘Lincoln,’ Two Very Different Takes On America’s Racial Past

Film historian David Thomson suggests the reason the film has resonated with the public and politicians themselves — with separate screenings held at the House, Senate and White House — is ultimately due to its message of pragmatic problem-solving.

“I think the reason why the reason the film is doing so well, I think the reason why it will be voted best picture by the Academy, is that that coincides with our sense, our plea almost, that the people who are hired and paid as our governors [should] compromise, make a deal,” Thomson said recently on KQED’s Forum. “Know that you’re never going to get everything you want, but we can work something out.”

Spoiler Alert: Slavery Is Abolished

When historians want to calm people down about how bitter the partisan polarization of our own time has gotten, they almost invariably refer to the 1856 incident in which Rep. Preston Brooks beat Sen. Charles Sumner on the Senate floor following a speech about slavery.

Today’s politicians may not be wholly cooperating, but things are not so bad as that.

Lincoln does not downplay the enormous divisions caused by slavery, but it doesn’t focus on them, either. Instead, it’s an end-of-war film that looks narrowly at the question of whether the nearly victorious North can find the will to abolish slavery permanently.

“They’re at a point where they understand there’s really no going back,” says Civil War historian and blogger Kevin M. Levin. “It only works because Spielberg is able to take a very narrow snapshot of this broader process of emancipation that takes place throughout the war.”

The film might have been more complicated had it been set earlier, when Lincoln himself was not as readily convinced that an abolitionist amendment was the way to go. Instead, Lincoln is able to present the argument as a relatively simple one — the holdouts are racists — confident that no one watching the movie in 2012 or 2013 will have any doubt about the virtue of abolishing slavery.

President Obama is seen during a September meeting at the White House, juxtaposed with the paintings of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, busts of Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln, and the Emancipation Proclamation.

“They’re accomplishing something that we now, in the present, think is so obviously right to do,” says Northwestern University historian Kate Masur, author of a well-regarded book about emancipation.

“By putting abolition of slavery at the center of it, they can show that Congress can do something that really needs to be done,” she says.

A Johnsonesque Lincoln

As the audience roots for Congress to abolish slavery, moviegoers might be left feeling a little more optimistic that present-day politicians can tackle divisive issues.

We’d all like to believe there are solutions regarding gun control, climate change and immigration that will seem as obvious 150 years from now as abolishing slavery does today. Of course, the problem is Americans hold equal and opposing views about what those might be.

“One of the reasons it works and resonates with Americans today is that they do see gridlock around now, but with a little backroom dealing, that Congress is able to pass the amendment,” Levin says.

The movie in this way offers an implicit criticism of Obama, says Powers, the Vogue critic. By showing Lincoln as an arm-twister along the lines of a President Lyndon B. Johnson, it makes him look less like a plaster saint and more like a hugely successful practical politician.

By contrast, Villanova University political scientist Lara Brown says of President Obama, “We have a president who really doesn’t like the dirtiness of politics.”

Referring to the recent fiscal package negotiated by Vice President Joe Biden, she says, “Obama signs off on the deals that other people get done.”

While that might be unfair, it’s true that at various points in his presidency, Obama has preferred to take his case directly to the American people, seeking to put pressure on Congress from outside.

This is in keeping with the usual portrayal of politicians in American film, Brown says. The bad guys are always the corrupt politicians who are entrenched in the system. The hero finds some way to rise above the mud and win over the American people.

Lincoln illustrates nothing so much as how much the president needs Congress to carry out important ideas.

“Lincoln is a hero for mastering the system,” Brown says. “That’s a completely opposite paradigm from what our usual fantasy is, in terms of Hollywood.”

The Triumph Of Compromise

Although the film is about a House vote in which the president has no formal part — he plays with his son while it’s going on — all the members of Congress have to come around to something like Lincoln’s point of view, from the left or from the right.

As Masur points out, when Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (played by Tommy Lee Jones, who is also up for an Oscar) renounces his ardent support for full equality for blacks in order to help ease passage of the amendment, “it’s a triumph of compromise.”

By showing how strong leadership can lead to a pragmatic result following a messy debate, the movie satisfies contemporary desires of those looking for politicians who can achieve results rather than remaining unyielding on the key issues of the day.

“Maybe it’s closer to showing how crazy the whole process is and having it still work,” Powers says. “So it’s hopeful in a new kind of way.”

Story By: Tell Me More

In the wake of the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., mayors are a key part of the debate over the country’s gun laws. Host Michel Martin speaks with two leaders who frequently encounter issues of gun violence and gun ownership; Kansas City, Mo. Mayor Sylvester James and former Cincinnati Mayor Kenneth Blackwell.

Story By: by Erica Ryan

Then-envoy Chris Stevens speaks to local media in Benghazi, Libya, on April 11, 2011.

An armed man waves his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the U.S. Consulate compound in Benghazi late on Sept. 11.

President Obama responds to the attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looks on in the Rose Garden of the White House on Sept. 12.

Witnesses are sworn in on Capitol Hill on Oct. 10, before testifying at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice leaves a Nov. 28 meeting on Capitol Hill with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., about the Benghazi terrorist attack.

Following Obama’s re-election, on Nov. 14 three Republican senators — John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte — call for a Watergate-style panel to investigate the Benghazi attack. They also pledge to block Rice if the president nominates her to replace Clinton as secretary of state, criticizing the way Rice characterized the attack in her media appearances Sept. 16.

Obama angrily defends Rice in a news conference later the same day, saying: “She made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her. If Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me.”

Two days later, former CIA Director David Petraeus, who stepped down days after the election because of an extramarital affair, tells lawmakers in a closed-door hearing that he always thought the attack was a terrorist strike. But he also says the White House did not politicize the process of determining what could be said, lawmakers report. And his testimony supports the view that Rice didn’t deliberately mislead with her remarks, they say.

Still, Republicans say they want answers about whether Rice tried to spin the account of the attack to avoid talking about terrorism during an election season. After a series of meetings with Rice during the week of Nov. 26, GOP senators say they’re more concerned than ever about what she said after the attack.

On Dec. 13, Rice sends a letter to the president asking that he not consider her for the secretary of state post. She says she is “now convinced that the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive and costly — to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities.”

We’re slow roasting the answers to those questions and serving them up by the numbers:

What is a ‘lame duck’?

18th Century - The term “lame duck” originates in Great Britain to describe a bankrupt businessman.

1830s – The term “lame duck” arrives in the United States, but is used to describe politicians on their way out of office, rather than businessmen.

85 - The number of current members of Congress who are lame ducks.

History

17 weeks - The length of time between November elections and inauguration on March 4th, prior to the 20th Amendment being ratified in 1933. This led to many problems, such as President-elect Abraham Lincoln being unable to deal with the secession of seven states during the long gap between his election and inauguration.

2 – The number of times a lame duck House of Representatives chose the president and vice president in disputed elections. This occurred in 1800 and 1824.

1932 - The year that humorist Will Rogers said: “An awful lot of people are confused as to just what is meant by a lame duck Congress. It’s like where some fellows worked for you and their work wasn’t satisfactory and you let ‘em out, but after you fired ‘em, you let ‘em stay long enough so they could burn your house down.”

The 20th Amendment

1923 - Senator George Norris of Nebraska proposes the 20th Amendment, moving the start date of Congress from March 4th to January 3rd. The Senate passes it 63-6.

1932 - After nine years of delays, the House also passes Norris’ amendment, 336-56.

1933 - The 20th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified.

19 – Number of lame duck sessions of Congress since the ratification of the 20th Amendment. Prior to the ratification of the 20th Amendment, every second session of Congress from the first to the 73rd was technically a lame duck session.

10 - Number of these sessions from 1940 to 1992.

9 – Number of these sessions from 1994 to 2012. There was no lame duck session in 1996.

1 day - The shortest lame duck session, which took place on December 31, 1948.

58 days - The longest lame duck session, which took place in the Senate from November 7, 1940 to January 3, 1941.

Noteworthy lame duck sessions

1954 - The year the Senate holds a lame duck session to censure Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

1974 – Nelson Rockefeller is confirmed as vice president.

1982 – The House votes to give its members a retroactive pay raise. The lame duck session is especially contentious, leading Senator Edward Kennedy to say, “We have accomplished precisely nothing of any value.” Representative Leon Panetta also remarked, “Frankly, we all look like fools.”

1994 - Congress passes legislation on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

1998 - The House of Representatives holds a lame duck session and votes to impeach President Bill Clinton.

2002 – The Department of Homeland Security is established.

2010 - A compromise tax bill is passed, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is repealed, and a new START treaty with Russia is approved.

<span class="articleLocation”>(Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department said on Monday that it had sued KBR Inc, accusing the company and a Kuwaiti subcontractor of improperly charging the federal government for the costs of delivering and installing trailers for troops in Iraq.

The filing of the lawsuit came days after the Justice Department dropped a similar but unrelated case over KBR’s costs for private armed security in Iraq.

Filed in the U.S. District Court in Rock Island, Illinois, the latest lawsuit alleges that KBR-hired subcontractor First Kuwaiti Trading Co inflated its crane, truck and driver costs and misrepresented delays on the installation of more than 2,250 trailers.

KBR provided many services to the U.S. government under a logistical support contract through subcontractors like First Kuwaiti.

First Kuwaiti’s subcontract, awarded in 2003, had been for $80 million. The government said KBR later agreed to pay First Kuwaiti an extra $48.8 million after the subcontractor in 2004 submitted two claims contending government-caused delays in providing military escorts entitled it to extra money.

The lawsuit said KBR charged the government for the inflated costs despite knowing they were false. KBR knew First Kuwaiti “could not be trusted,” the lawsuit said.

The complaint also said KBR quality assurance personnel had recommended permanently disqualifying First Kuwaiti from receiving any contracts for providing the army trailers two months before the subcontract was awarded.

In July 2004, a KBR representative said claims by First Kuwaiti’s founder under other subcontracts “absolute highway robbery,” the complaint said.

“The facts alleged in the complaint indicate that KBR and First Kuwaiti did not provide an honest accounting,” said Jim Lewis, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of Illinois.

KBR said in a statement it had not seen the latest complaint, but that it believed the government’s claims are “baseless and without merit.”

“KBR has faithfully supported American troops in Iraq and has performed its work in support of the army with professionalism and in full compliance with its contract and the law,” it said.

First Kuwaiti, based in Kuwait City, Kuwait, also goes by First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co, according to the complaint. A website for the company says it was founded in 1996 by businessman Wadih Al-Absi and employs more than 600 engineers and 15,000 staff members.

Rock Island was the location of an earlier criminal lawsuit against a former KBR employee, Anthony Martin, who pleaded guilty in July 2007 to participating in a kick-back scheme.

Monday’s complaint refers to Martin’s case and said that the kickback scheme was with Al-Absi. Martin received $10,000 and was promised another $190,000 to award First Kuwaiti subcontracts for trucks and trailers, the lawsuit said.

A representative for First Kuwaiti did not respond to an email seeking comment. A lawyer for Martin did not respond to a call and an email seeking comment.

Monday’s lawsuit came after KBR last week welcomed the dismissal of an earlier lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington by the Justice Department in 2010.

The government gave no reason for dropping that case. It did so without prejudice, giving it the ability to refile the case at a later date.

Both lawsuits were under the False Claims Act, which allows the United States to recoup funds when companies overbill the government.

The statute allows the government to sue for three times its damages and assess civil penalties of $5,500 to $11,000 per false claim.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Dan Grebler, Tim Dobbyn and Michael Perry)

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has ordered the U.S. military’s top brass to look for any gaps in ethics training as he lamented lapses in judgment by officers that could “erode public confidence in our leadership,” a Pentagon spokesman said on Thursday.

Questions over the conduct of U.S. generals has come into sharp focus over the past week as retired General David Petraeus lost his job as CIA director over an affair and General John Allen, who leads the Afghan war effort, was placed under investigation for potentially inappropriate emails with a Florida socialite.

A Pentagon spokesman told reporters traveling with Panetta in Thailand that development of the defense secretary’s initiative pre-dated the latest scandals.

Lesser-known U.S. military leaders have come under scrutiny recently, with one general demoted by Panetta for wasting taxpayer money and another facing accusations including forcible sodomy of a subordinate.

“The vast majority of our senior officers takes this responsibility (of leadership) seriously and acts in accord with ethics regulations and training,” Panetta said in a memo to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey.

“Yet, as has happened recently, when lapses occur, they have the potential to erode public confidence in our leadership. … Worse, they can be detrimental to the execution of our mission to defend the American people.”

Panetta, in the memo dated November 14, called on Dempsey to work with other military leaders to review existing ethics training programs “to determine if they are adequate to address the concerns I have identified.”

He said he would present President Barack Obama an interim report by December 1 with initial results of the review and any recommendations developed by that time.

The memo did not list any specific lapses but on Wednesday Panetta announced he was demoting retiring Army General William Ward and would seek to recoup $82,000 in expenses from him.

Ward was accused of misconduct in travel, misuse of military aircraft and misuse of staff. In one case, Ward took his official plane to Bermuda for an overnight refueling stop with his wife, investigators found.

In another case, Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair, a 27-year Army veteran based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, is accused of 26 violations of military law including forcible sodomy, wrongful sexual conduct, possessing pornography while deployed and conduct unbecoming of an officer.

The charges stem from allegations of inappropriate behavior toward four female subordinates and a civilian over the past five years. Sinclair is also accused of claiming more than $4,000 in personal travel as military business expenses.

Panetta said he knows of no other military officials beyond Allen drawn into the investigation of Petraeus.

Panetta said in his memo that the Pentagon has strong rules in place setting standards for personal conduct “and prohibit misuse of taxpayer resources.” He said it is not enough to merely comply with rules, saying military leaders also need to exercise sound judgment.

“An action may be legally permissible but neither advisable nor wise,” he wrote.

(Editing by Will Dunham)