Anonymous sources in the Pentagon have suggested the Navy’s destroyer program could be scaled back and the development of a new class of ship delayed in an effort to cut costs.

The Pentagon’s budget request for 2006 – with plans for beyond – isn’t due until February, but reports have the people in Bath pretty nervous.

Bath Iron Works employs more than 6,000 people building ships for the Navy, including Arleigh Burke class destroyers and an experimental, next-generation stealth destroyer.

According to reports by the Washington Post, the proposed Navy budget would provide funding for only four ships in 2006, down from nine in 2005. It would also delay production of the stealth destroyer.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is committed to transforming the military into a lighter force, with less of the budget tied up in big-ticket items – like Navy surface ships – and more dedicated to Special Forces and spies.

But panic in Bath is premature. The budget process is long and twisted, and the leak of troubled waters ahead for the destroyers could be a pre-emptive strike by the ship’s supporters to stave off cuts.

Nonetheless, Maine’s congressional delegation takes threats to Bath and its workers seriously. Sen. Susan Collins, who is a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that she will work to protect Bath and the ships built there.

Sen. Olympia Snowe called the proposed cutbacks “irresponsible” and said they would “create unnecessary instability in the nation’s fleet force strength and uncertainty to the viability of our shipbuilding industry.”

To drastically cut back on shipbuilding would undermine the struggle against international terrorists, and put at risk important construction capacity. Skilled workers would be lost, as would irreplaceable facilities.

Destroyers are on the front line of our efforts on the open seas. They play an indispensable role in combating terrorists who use shipping to move fighters, money and weapons around the globe.

They are an effective projection of U.S. power and an important war-making tool. That shouldn’t be lost in the Pentagon’s rush for reinvention.