/ Source: Reuters
The Pentagon's top budget official on Monday acknowledged that slowing down production on some weapons programs and truncating others would raise the unit cost in some cases.
Undersecretary of Defense Robert Hale said it was a "fair point" that delays could increase costs, but said the Pentagon needed to make the cuts to reach its goal of cutting defense spending by $487 billion over the next decade.
He said procurement was hit harder than other areas in fiscal 2013, which begins October 1, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the overall reduction in the Pentagon budget. But he told reporters that troop reductions would result in greater declines in military personnel spending in the coming years.