U.S. defense contractors are riding high these days, buoyed by rising Pentagon spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the high cost of homeland security in the U.S.-declared war on terror, dpa reported. The fiscal 2006 defense budget is set to climb to 441 billion dollars, an increase of 21 billion dollars over 2005. It envisions an additional 50 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress plans to approve 79 billion dollars for weapons systems procurement and about 69 billion dollars for military research and development. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Honeywell and United Technologies have all done well in the first half of this year and have a huge backlog of orders. With President George W. Bush and Congress ready to spend, they can expect robust sales for years to come. Lockheed Martin, the biggest U.S. defense contractor and top seller of secure computer systems, saw net profit jump 41 per cent to 830 million dollars in the first six months of 2005. Half-year sales rose to 17.8 billion dollars from 17.1 billion dollars in the same period last year, despite a drop in deliveries of F-16 fighter jets that cut into warplane sales. Lockheed, which is also strong on missile defenses, integrated electronic combat systems and military space programmes, projects 2005 sales of up to 38 billion dollars and has orders worth another 73 billion dollars. --more 1345 Local Time 1045 GMT
