NO TIME FOR A FUNDING FIGHT: On his flight home from the G20 summit in Argentina President Trump indicated he’s amenable to delaying a showdown over funding for his Mexico border wall in deference to the week of mourning for the death of former President George H.W. Bush Friday night. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said if Congress wants to pass another continuing resolution to keep the 25 percent of government that is still unfunded open past Friday’s deadline, he’d be willing to go along.

HAPPENING TODAY: SPECIAL AIR MISSION 41: Here’s the schedule announced Saturday for the events surrounding the funeral of George H. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States:

11:30 a.m. Bush’s remains are flown from Houston to Joint Base Andrews.

3:30 p.m.  Arrival ceremony at Joint Base Andrews.

4:45 p.m. The president’s casket is taken by motorcade to the U.S. Capitol.

5 p.m. President George H.W. Bush will lie in state from 5 p.m. until 10 a.m. on Wednesday. The public will be allowed to pay respects from 7:30 p.m. until 8:45 a.m. Wednesday.

10 a.m. On Wednesday the president’s his casket will make the five-mile journey from Capitol Hill the Washington National Cathedral.

11 a.m. The funeral at the Washington National Cathedral is scheduled to last 90 minutes

1:15 p.m. The president’s remains will be flown back to Houston

4:30 p.m. local time. Bush will lie in repose at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston.

12:30 p.m. On Thursday the president’s casket will be carried by a special train equipped with a glass viewing car and pulled by a blue Union Pacific locomotive number 4141, to his final resting place on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station.

4:15 p.m. local time. Bush will be interred next to his wife Barbara and daughter Robin at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

MATTIS’ NOT-SO-VEILED WARNING: As the Pentagon waits to see if President Trump will insist on in his 5 percent cut in defense spending for next year, his Pentagon chief was out in California warning of the folly of slashing the military budget after just two years of growth. “Cutting defense will not close the deficit, and I would suggest doing so would be a disservice to troops and the American people they serve and protect, because we all know here today that America can afford survival,” Mattis said in remarks Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum.

“The U.S. Navy has not lost a ship to enemy action since 1944. The U.S. Air Force has held air superiority since 1945. It is hubris to think that can’t change. We have no preordained right to victory on the battlefield,” Mattis said. “As Congress’ own National Defense Strategy Commission report puts it, and I quote here, ‘The cost will not be measured in abstract concepts like international stability and global order; it will be measured in American lives.’”

The Pentagon is presenting Trump with two options, the $700 billion budget he requested, and the $733 billion budget that was in the works when he surprised Mattis and company with the order to find 5 percent in savings. Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan says the $700 billion budget would slow modernization and weapons acquisition.

“It’s up to me to make the logical argument about what the president’s submission should look like from the Office of Management to the Congress,” Mattis said during a q-and-a session. “But I’m optimistic that at the end of the day we’ll have what we need to keep our country safe.”

MCKENZIE HEARING: This week, two nominees to lead U.S. wars in the Mideast, including the grinding Afghanistan conflict, sit down before Senate Armed Services Committee lawmakers to testify on their nominations. Lt. Gen. Frank McKenzie has been tapped to head U.S. Central Command and Lt. Gen. Richard Clarke is picked for U.S. Special Operations Command. The hearing comes amid grim news from Afghanistan, including the attempted assassination of the U.S. commander and the deaths of four special ops troops last week.

A major question for senators is whether Trump’s year-old Afghanistan strategy, aimed at helping Afghan forces pound the Taliban into peace talks, is working. “The figures are on [the Afghans’] side in terms of deescalating, but not to my satisfaction, not to the satisfaction of most of the American people,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Armed Services chairman. “So, the ultimate decision should be military decision as to the progress they’re making and does that progress justify our presence.”

F-35 CHAMPION ASCENDS: The Pentagon’s F-35 fighter jet program may be set for a good 2019 on Capitol Hill. One of its top proponents, Rep. Kay Granger, has been picked by her party as the new ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, which will hold the purse strings when it comes to future purchases of the pricey jets. “The hard work to reform the committee begins today,” Granger said in a statement following a vote by the Republican Steering Committee last week.

Lockheed Martin has a mile-long assembly plant for the F-35 jets in Fort Worth that is in Granger’s district. Earlier this year the congresswoman, who is serving as the chairwoman of the Appropriations defense subcommittee, spearheaded $9.3 billion in funding to buy 93 of the aircraft — 16 more than the Pentagon requested. Despite a coming Democratic House majority, the move puts Granger in a position to push more F-35 purchases again in 2019.

ISIS LEADER KILLED: An ISIS leader who was involved in the beheading of a former U.S. Army Ranger was killed in Syria yesterday according to the U.S.-led counter ISIS coalition. Abu al Umarayn — described as a senior member of ISIS — was killed by a U.S. drone strike in the Badiyah Desert.

“Al Umarayn had given indications of posing an imminent threat to Coalition Forces and he was involved in the killing of American citizen and former U.S. Army Ranger Peter Kassig,” said Col. Sean Ryan, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in an emailed statement. “He has been linked to and directly involved with executing several other prisoners as a senior ISIS member.”

Kassig, 26, enlisted in the Army in 2004 and was medically discharged in 2007. He was abducted in Syria in October 2013 while providing aid to refugees fleeing the country. Kassig was murdered and beheaded by members of ISIS.

KIM MEETING STILL ON: President Trump says he still he expects to have another meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in January or February, despite the lack of progress toward denuclearization. “I have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” Trump told reporters on the flight back to Washington on Air Force One. “Don’t forget, we’ve been doing that for what — six, seven months? Not a long time.”

And Trump said now that there a truce in the trade war with Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping has once again committed to helping. “He is agreeing to work with me 100 percent on North Korea, and that’s a big thing, too,” Trump said.

RUSSIA’S REVANCHIST AIMS: Russia might be angling to take control of the key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, a top Estonian defense official told the Washington Examiner, forecasting a move that would mark a serious escalation of the simmering conflict between the two neighbors.

“This is part of Ukraine that has economic problems and social problems because of the conflict anyway, and so by squeezing the access to this area of Ukraine, they are making the social or economic conditions even worse and possibly, possibly trying to create some kind of social upheaval there,” Permanent Secretary Kristjan Prikk, the top civilian in the NATO member’s Ministry of Defense, told the Washington Examiner.

PUTIN’S A ‘SLOW LEARNER’: At that Reagan defense forum, Mattis also took a swipe at  Russian President Vladimir Putin, while discussing efforts to deter Kremlin’s regional aggression. “This is a very complex situation because Mr. Putin is clearly a slow learner,” Mattis told Fox News’ Bret Baier during the Saturday panel discussion. “He is not recognizing that what he is doing is actually creating the animosity against his people. He is not acting in the best interest of the Russian people.”

IRAN’S LATEST ICBM TEST: Iran tested a ballistic missile capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads throughout the Middle East and into Europe, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Saturday. “As we have been warning for some time, Iran’s missile testing and missile proliferation is growing,” Pompeo said in a bulletin on the test. “We are accumulating risk of escalation in the region if we fail to restore deterrence.” The test of a medium-range ballistic missile is in violation of UNSC Resolution 223, according to the State Department.

“Iran’s missile testing is not just an indicator of its rogue status. It’s also a measure of its interest in keeping its missiles battlefield ready,” writes Iran expert Behnam Ben Taleblu with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “Counting this most recent test, Iran has launched as many as 40 ballistic missiles as part of tests and military operations since agreeing to the JCPOA back in July 2015.”

“Europe cannot remain indifferent in the face of continuing ballistic missile development, testing, and proliferation by Tehran. What is a threat to the Middle East today will be a threat to Europe tomorrow,” Taleblu warns.

SOLDIER IN SPACE: U.S. Army Lt. Col. Anne McClain was successfully launched into orbit aboard a Soyuz spacecraft at 6:30 this morning from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, for a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

During her time aboard the ISS, McClain will participate with her crew in facilitating some 250 research investigations and technology demonstrations not possible on Earth. Among these, McClain is expected to take part in one of the first “Tissues on Chips” experiment. It will use miniature models of living organ tissues on transparent microchips to replicate the complex biological functions of specific organs.

OBSESSION WITH THE MALE MEMBER: There were Valentine’s Day penis drawings and Santa penis drawings. Airmen drew phalluses on aircraft, vehicles, and dorms. Any dusty surface was a canvas. The Air Force investigation of the 69th Bomb Squadron out of Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota found its airmen made a running joke out of the pictures during a  2017-2018 deployment to Qatar. “Deployed aircrew witness testimonies stated phallic drawings were prevalent throughout the base including on vehicles, in public restrooms and many dusty surfaces,” the Air Force found.

Squadron commander Lt. Col. Paul Goossen, who has been fired over the activity, tried to take action by posting a public notice to his airmen on a bulletin board in a busy area of the base. He had witnessed a drawing with a “heart-themed motif” around Valentine’s Day. “Lt. Col. Goossen put a directive on the whiteboard to ‘stop drawing dicks’ and listed places they were showing up like … the dorms and vehicles,” according to the investigation. Still, at the end of the squadron’s deployment to Al Udeid Air Base, the various penis drawings were compiled as PowerPoint slides on a CD by members of the squadron and shown at a ceremony.

THE RUNDOWN

AP: Qatar will pull out of OPEC amid tension with Saudi Arabia

Reuters: Trump wants Kim to know he likes him and will fulfill his wishes, South Korean leader says

Daily Beast: As They Left G20, America’s Allies Looked to Bail Out of Trump’s ‘America First’

Washington Post: Amazon partners with Lockheed to process space data

Defense One: Mattis ‘Optimistic’ Pentagon Will Get Needed Budget from White House, Democrats

AP: NATO chief says Bosnia set for new move on membership path

Task and Purpose: 5th Fleet Commander Found Dead In Bahrain Home

Roll Call: President George H.W. Bush to Lie in State in US Capitol Rotunda

Foreign Policy: Five Vital Lessons From George H.W. Bush

Military Times: Mattis’ fix for the civilian-military divide: Stop being jerks

Fox News: Russia deploys S-400 surface-to-air missile battery in Crimea, seen in new satellite images

Military.com: On Alaska Base, Clean-Up Starts After 7.0 Earthquake

Wall Street Journal: CIA Intercepts Underpin Assessment Saudi Crown Prince Targeted Khashoggi

New York Times: Israeli Software Helped Saudis Spy on Khashoggi, Lawsuit Says