REFILE-U.S. House panel trims Army project

(Removes redundant word from headline)

WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Army's $160 billion keystone modernization program, co-led by Boeing Co (BA.N) and SAIC Inc (SAI.N), suffered a setback on Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

The Democratic-controlled panel voted along party lines to cut $200 million, or 5.5 percent, of the $3.6 billion sought by President Bush for the Future Combat Systems program in the coming budget year.

At issue are 14 major weapons systems linked by computer networks. The Army estimates it will cost $160 billion; the Government Accountability Office says the price tag could grow to $200 billion.

The committee action on Future Combat Systems, or FCS, was the first to go to a roll-call vote as the House panel debated its version of the fiscal 2009 defense policy bill.

Republicans on the panel unanimously voted for a failed effort to restore $233 million to the program on the ground it was in danger of death by a "thousand slashes," as Republican Todd Akin of Missouri put it.

But Rep. Neil Abercrombie, the Hawaiian Democrat who chairs the panel's Air-Land subcommittee, argued the cuts did nothing to undermine the program's prospects for succeeding in a major review scheduled next year to decide on the program's fate.

The committee's Democrats, siding with Abercrombie, also voted to shift $33 million within FCS funding from long-term FCS projects to near-term ones said by Abercrombie to have a chance of being fielded by 2011.

The House panel's bill must be adopted by the full House. Then it must be reconciled with a companion measure in the Senate before it can be signed into law by the president.