By John M. Donnelly, CQ Staff

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told reporters Thursday he hopes Congress can accomplish four goals in the lame-duck session to strengthen U.S. security.

Panetta’s to-do list consists of blocking the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration from taking effect, passing defense authorization and cybersecurity bills, and confirming new commanders for NATO and the Afghanistan theater of operations.

“When Congress returns to town after the election, there’s a great deal of critical work that needs to be done,” Panetta said at the press conference. He was joined by Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“This is a full agenda,” Panetta added. “It’s one that requires Democrats and Republicans to work together. And after a tough national election, the American people, I think, will expect both parties to roll up their sleeves, work together to solve the problems facing the nation and to protect our national security.”

Sequestration would start on Jan. 2 and would subtract roughly $55 billion from most Pentagon programs in 2013, the first of nearly $500 billion in reductions compared to previous plans — on top of some $487 billion in cutbacks already proposed in response to the 2011 debt-ceiling law (PL 112-25).

“There are only 70 days until that happens, and Congress is certainly on the clock when it comes to that potential sequestration occurring,” said Panetta, who has decried the adverse effect the additional cuts would have on U.S. military plans and programs.

Panetta’s next priority is a defense authorization bill. The House has passed its version (HR 4310) but the Senate has yet to act on its Armed Services Committee bill (S 3254).

Panetta said he would like to get a fiscal 2013 Defense appropriations bill, too, although he sounded resigned that the Pentagon will work for the fiscal year’s first six months on a continuing resolution (PL 112-75). He lamented that operating on a CR has impaired the Pentagon’s ability to write a fiscal 2014 request — a process that is under way and will continue for the next couple of months.

“For me to be able to put a strategy in place, for us to be able to make the kind of strategic choices we need to make, I have to have some stability with regards to where are we going from here,” Panetta said. “And I don’t have that right now, and that frankly — that’s a major concern.”

Third, he said, Congress “really must pass” cybersecurity legislation. In response to a question about an attack earlier this year on computers at Saudi Aramco oil company, he declined to describe the likely source of the attacks and seemed to suggest the answer is classified. But he did stress the peril of such attacks and seemed to imply that a country was behind it. Some U.S. government officials have told reporters Iran is believed to have been behind the attack.

“It’s one of the first we’ve seen that can actually take down and destroy computers,” he said of the Saudi Aramco attack. “That’s a very sophisticated tool. There are only a few countries in the world that have that capability. But it raises tremendous concerns about the potential for the use of that kind of tool when it comes to our power grid, when it comes to our financial systems, when it comes to our government systems.”

Separately, one of the Senate sponsors of a leading cybersecurity bill, Connecticut independent Joseph I. Lieberman, said Wednesday at an event in his state he thinks the chances of the Senate passing an effective bill are “less than 50-50,” even though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has committed to bringing a bill to a vote.

Fourth on Panetta’s priority list for Congress is Senate confirmation of two four-star generals for new positions: Gen. John R. Allen, now commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, to become NATO’s new supreme allied commander in Europe and chief of U.S. European Command, and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., now the Marine Corps’ assistant commandant, to take over for Allen.