WASHINGTON [MENL] -- A presidential commission has issued interim recommendations that the Bush administration move to reduce defense offsets in U.S. arms sales.

The commission said Washington should reach a multilateral agreement with U.S. trading partners to "reduce or prohibit the use of offsets in defense trade and work cooperatively with other countries to shift their offset demands away from defense production which supplants U.S. work and jobs, and toward activities that could serve their economic and political needs, but with benign or even positive effects for the United States."

Instead, the commission recommends that the Pentagon allow for the increase in the involvement of foreign contractors in the research and development stages of new defense systems to reduce the demand of their governments for offsets.

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The watchdog agency of Congress has cast doubts whether the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft can work.

The Government Accounting Office, in a harsh report, said the Pentagon was ready to decide on full production of the V-22 without determining whether the design is feasible. The report appears to be ensure a halt in the V-22, a program closely followed by militaries in the Middle East.

"Our review of the V-22 program, which is already in low-rate initial production, revealed that the department planned to proceed with a full-rate production decision without knowing whether new technology could meet Marine Corps requirements; whether the design would work as required; or whether the design could be produced within cost, schedule, and quality targets," the GAO report said.