Pentagon contractors reach new levels of frustration with Obama White House.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Defense Watch

Since the early days of President Obama's term, the defense industry has girded for the end of the Pentagon's decade-long spending spree. Several executives publicly said they viewed defense cuts as necessary for the nation to get its fiscal house in order following the 2008 collapse of the economy. The tone was set by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who warned in 2009 that the money spigot was about to dose, and ordered the termination of several big-ticket programs.

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Many industry executives in fact agreed with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullen who said that gaping budget deficits and piling debt are bigger threats to national security than any country or terrorist organization. To a degree, industry was willing to support the president's proposed defense budget cuts on principle. Defense executives, not unlike managers in other sectors, fear budget deficits as they eventually cause interest rates to spike and the economy to spin out of control.

But over the past nine to 10 months, corporations have begun to lose confidence in government, and executives are faulting the president for not doing more to untangle the current morass that could leave many contractors sinking in the muck.

Industry officials are now blaming Obama for allowing the defense budget to become a pawn in a cynical budget game. As the Pentagon faces $52 billion in automatic cuts for fiscal year 2013--beyond the $26 billion reduction that the administration already had sought--industry is turning on the administration for pretending the so-called "sequestration" threat does not exist.

Some executives throw up their hands in frustration as they hear Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's fear-inducing declarations that the mandatory spending reductions would be catastrophic to the military, while the president insists that any legislation that repeals the cuts without revenue offsets would be vetoed.

Even those who are willing to give the president a break and blame Congress entirely for dysfunctional governing still knock the administration for persistent assertions that the Defense Department is not planning for sequestration.

Burying one's head in the sand until Congress takes this up during the lame duck session is not an acceptable course of action for most Pentagon contractors, said one executive during a recent industry meeting. Not planning for sequestration is "unprofessional and it is bad government," he said...