The question of who is in charge of Washington DC's airspace has been partially resolved.
The question was between the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. DHS wanted authority to be able to arm their recon planes for shoot-down missions, while the military already had the hardware and the mandate to do so.
In the last couple of days, it has been revealed that the Pentagon wants the DHS to perform a law-enforcement type of role and to leave the military stuff to the military (story here). An F-15 Strike Eagle is better equipped to stop an inbound suicide aircraft than an armed Customs Citation aircraft, after all.
A memo being circulated around the press says that the Pentagon prefers a "badges to bullets" role for DHS, and this makes sense.
With everyone from the Secret Service to the military already armed to the teeth and ready to blow aircraft out of the air if one gets too close to the Capitol, it would have made a dangerous air corridor even more perilous for wayward pilots (bad) and for idiot jihaddists (good).
Remember, the role of the military is to kill the enemy and to break things. DHS is to keep the enemy away from our shores and to gather intelligence about threats to the American people that are already here.
With the Air Force controlling the airspace around Washington and the Secret Service on the ground, plus whatever anti-aircraft batteries are around Washington, it makes for a well-protected Capitol with interlocking layers of defense. One more layer would have confused things.
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