Behind the Navy's Stealth Destroyer Shuffle

Last month, seemingly out of the blue, the Navy decided to cut its $5-billion-a-copy DDG-1000 stealth destroyer from seven copies to just two, and buy an extra 12, older DDG-51 Burke-class ships instead.

When challenged, the Navy justified its decision a number of ways, citing the DDG-1000's skyrocketing cost and its supposed inability to defend against certain threats, including the latest anti-ship missiles.

"It has a lot of technology, but it cannot perform broader, integrated air and missile defense," Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, tells the Los Angeles Times, in his first interview since the controversial move to cancel the destroyer program.

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