NEW YORK (Reuters) — The U.S. Navy has not been asked to plan for additional budget cuts required after a congressional committee last week failed to reach agreement on cutting the federal deficit, a senior Navy acquisition official said on Wednesday.
Vice Admiral Mark Skinner, principal military deputy to the Navy's acquisition chief, told a conference sponsored by Credit Suisse and Aviation Week that the Navy and other military services had submitted budget plans for fiscal 2013 to senior Pentagon budget officials that addressed over $450 billion in cuts over the next decade that were already agreed to by the White House.
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The Navy's share of those cuts for fiscal 2013 was $9 billion to $10 billion, Skinner said.
Adding the $600 billion in additional cuts required under sequestration would be challenging, he said, noting that it would cause problems for existing production contracts and production lines. "We're going to break a lot of china," he told conference participants.
Skinner said there was no "convergence" within the Pentagon on how to deal with the additional cuts, but that U.S. military commanders were meeting this week to discuss the impact the congressionally mandated cuts would have on the U.S. military's strategy. Top Pentagon leaders would also meet with President Barack Obama, he said.
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