Senate defense budget bill fails to include amendment calling for THAAD deployment in S. Korea

The recently approved Senate defense budget bill for next year has failed to include a proposed amendment calling for deployment of the U.S. THAAD missile defense system in South Korea, a congressional source said Wednesday.

The Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 in a 85-13 vote Tuesday, authorizing $602 billion in defense spending. The legislation will later be combined with a House version before being sent to President Barack Obama.

Late last month, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) introduced a proposal to amend the legislation to include an expression of support for the potential deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system to South Korea to better defend against North Korean missile threats.

But that proposal failed to make it into the bill, the source said.

The proposal had said that the short-range, medium-range, and long-range ballistic missile programs of the North represent an imminent and growing threat to South Korea and the U.S. homeland, and that THAAD would effectively complement and significantly strengthen the existing missile defense capabilities of the U.S. on the Korean Peninsula.

Following the North's long-range missile test in February, Seoul and Washington launched official talks about placing a THAAD battery in the South to bolster defense against missile threats from the communist nation.

Sources have said that the THAAD talks have moved forward to a point where the two sides are now looking into candidate sites for deployment, including not only existing U.S. military bases, but also mountainous areas away from cities. (Yonhap)