Pentagon defends 6 costly U.S. weapons programs

The Pentagon told Congress on Tuesday the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter programme and five other big weapons programmes were vital to national security and should continue despite big cost overruns that triggered live-or-die reviews.

The U.S. Defense Department told lawmakers that all six programs met five conditions required to keep them going under the Nunn-McCurdy law which requires detailed reviews once a program's unit costs rise 50 percent above initial estimates.

The cost of the F-35 program, for instance, is now expected to reach $382 billion over the life of the program. The expected cost of each aircraft rose from $50 million in fiscal year 2002 dollars to $92.4 million. But senior defense officials said they expected to undercut those estimates.

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