White House, defense contractors discuss harm of automatic spending cuts

WASHINGTON Feb 6 (Reuters) - Senior White House officials met with chief executives from top defense contractors on Wednesday to discuss the impact to their business of deep automatic federal spending cuts slated to take effect on March 1, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

The meeting on the automatic cuts, or "sequester," included top executives from Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems and several other companies, Carney said.