Pentagon official sees real growth in defense budget

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NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland (Reuters) -The Pentagon's top weapons buyer said he expected the U.S. base defense budget to continue to grow in real terms, but not at the double-digit rates seen in recent years.Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, said on Tuesday that his office was scrutinizing major weapons contracts carefully as part of a concerted effort to get more for the billions spent on defense procurement.He said that was a priority of Defense Secretary Robert Gates as well as President Barack Obama.But it was also necessary, given that the U.S. defense budget was not expected to grow at the high rates seen since the United States began its wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, Carter told industry executives and defense officials at the annual Navy League conference."We expect the defense base budget to continue to grow in real terms, but not at double digit rates," Carter said.Carter said the restructuring of the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 program reflected the Pentagon's use of better cost estimates and should put the $300 billion program on a better path for the future.The Defense Department remained committed to the F-35, or Joint Strike Fighter, as the main replacement for aging U.S. fighter jets, Carter said.But he reiterated the Obama administration's opposition to a second engine being developed for the new fighter by General Electric Co and Britain's Rolls Royce.There was no good analytical case that the extra cost of the second engine would ever be paid back in the form of cost savings generated by a future competition between the GE-Rolls team and Pratt & Whitney, the United Technologies Corp unit building the primary engine for the fighter jet.Carter said the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency was also taking an innovative approach to getting more for the billions of dollars spent on weapons. He said the agency planned to open some $37 billion worth of business to competition rather than renewing sole-source contracts.(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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