JACKSON, Miss. – Cuts to a Navy destroyer program could devastate the nation’s shipbuilding capabilities and deal a major blow to developing future surface combatants, Northrop Grumman’s shipbuilding chief and others warn.

The Pentagon has considered cutting as much as $15 billion from weapons and development programs in next year’s budget to offset the cost of the war in Iraq. Senate and House leaders differ on just how much money should go to the DD(X) destroyer program.

Northrop Grumman Ship Systems and General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works in Maine – the nation’s two major builders of warships – are partnered in the design phase of the DD(X), which would replace the Navy’s aging fleet of destroyers.

It could be years before construction on the first ship is completed, and contracts for additional vessels would be awarded later if funding remains available.

“The future of our nation depends on a well-balanced security force and that includes a modern Navy, so unless we have shipbuilding programs – building ships for the future – our security interests are going to be at risk,” said U.S. Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss. “We’re doing all we can to hold the line in conference with the House and see that the final appropriations bill supports the DD(X) program.”

Cochran told The Associated Press that a proposed House bill would underfund the program by millions of dollars.

The president has requested $716 million in procurement and $1.114 billion in research and development funds for the DD(X), Cochran said.

Cutting the program “would be devastating,” Northrop Grumman Ships Systems President Philip Teel told the AP during a recent interview in Jackson.

“Bath [Iron Works] builds surface combatants only, we build a lot of different types of ships, but it would be devastating to American shipbuilding is what it would be,” Teel said.

The DD(X), once developed, could allow the Navy to strike miles inland or to hit isolated targets in populated coastal areas with precision-guided weapons, the Navy believes.

Naval officials also like the prospect that the design of the ship is highly automated, with the need for only a small crew.

U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., has been a vocal opponent of any cuts to the DD(X) budget. He says cutting the program could compromise the United States’ ability to defend itself.

“Building DD(X) is important for the nation today because the Marine Corps needs surface fire support,” Lott said in a written statement. “It is important for the shipbuilding industrial base because it will ensure that we maintain shipbuilding and related manufacturing jobs in America.”

Northrop Grumman’s largest Mississippi shipyard is in Lott’s hometown of Pascagoula. The company also has yards in nearby Gulfport and in Louisiana.

With more than 5,600 employees at Bath Iron Works and nearly 20,000 working for Northrop Grumman Ship Systems in Mississippi and Louisiana, both companies fear funding cuts.

Jim DeMartini, a spokesman for Bath Iron Works, said the DD(X) “would provide the technology capabilities that the Navy needs for 21st century threats that they are combating every day.”

DeMartini would not comment on what Bath Iron Works would do if the DD(X) program is cut.

“We’re focused right now on doing everything we can as part of the DD(X) program team to ensure that the program goes forward as scheduled,” he said. “Beyond that, it would be pure speculation on my part and that’s something I don’t want to do.”