Senate Unanimously Passes Missile Defense Amendment

The Senate just passed the missile defense amendment to Defense Authorization -- unanimously on voice vote.

The Lieberman-Sessions Amendment would:

Deploy Effective, Affordable Missile Defenses to Europe

This amendment would express the sense of the Senate that while the administration reviews its options for providing a long-range missile defense capability to protect Europe and the United States from Iranian missile threats, it should: 1) continue to develop the planned Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system for Poland and the Czech Republic and 2) only consider alternatives that provide similar capabilities as the GMD system for the defense of Europe and the United States. It would also reserve $353.1 million in funds authorized by the FY09 and FY10 NDAAs for European missile defense to be used only for these purposes.