The Office of the Secretary of Defense has cut funding for the LPD-17 amphibious ship program by $670 million in fiscal year 2002, deleting from the Navy's budget two ships the service planned to purchase that year, Inside the Navy has learned. The decision was issued June 22 in program budget decision No. 819, which is labeled "realistic cost estimates." It leaves $421.3 million in FY-02 "to continue procurement of contractor furnished equipment for LPD-17 as originally scheduled" and makes...