WASHINGTON (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.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Vicki Allen)