U.S. lawmaker defends THAAD deployment plan

A U.S. House lawmaker said Wednesday he would like to have a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery “in my backyard” if the U.S. military allows so, denying concerns in South Korea over the safety of the missile defense system’s radar.

Trent Franks, a Republican House representative from Arizona, made the remark in a meeting with South Korean reporters at a hotel in Cleveland, Ohio during his visit to the city to attend his party’s convention. Franks, a co-chair of the Missile Defense Caucus and the leader of the Congressional EMP Caucus, said last week that he was willing to let his children eat melons produced in Seongju, where a THAAD battery will be deployed.

The lawmaker also said that any claims THAAD is dangerous to humans are politically oriented and made by those who try to prevent South Korea from accumulating strategic defense capabilities. He also stressed the importance of South Korea and the U.S. strengthen the interoperability of their missile defense systems in order to reduce unnecessary costs.

Asked whether Lockheed Martin, the developer of the THAAD system, will manufacture a new THAAD system to be deployed to South Korea, Franks said that no decision has been made but that relocating an existing THAAD battery could be more effective because its performance testing has been verified.

Regarding a question of whether Donald Trump would reconsider the THAAD deployment decision in line with his “America first” doctrine, the lawmaker projected that the THAAD deployment decision would not be reversed.

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