Bill Nelson: “with regard to the Sessions amendment, it would establish a U.S. policy concerning defense against Iranian ballistic…”

“with regard to the Sessions amendment, it would establish a U.S. policy concerning defense against Iranian ballistic missiles stating that the United States will develop and deploy effectively defenses against Iranian ballistic missiles as soon as technologically possible. I think everyone agrees with that idea. I would suggest that this is effectively our policy today, and, indeed, is the policy of the bill and is so stated in the bill before us, that we are already developing and deploying a number of missile defense programs to provide such effective defenses. For example, the United States has already deployed the Patriot PAC-3 system to the region to provide defensive capability for our forward-deployed forces in the region. We are also developing and deploying the AEGIS BMD system, and we are developing the THAAD system. All of these systems will provide effective defense capability against Iran's existing and near-term missile capabilities. However, we do not have sufficient capability today with these systems to provide the level of protection that our combatant commanders need.”