“I have deep sympathy for the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, who have suffered grievously”, Obama wrote in his veto message to Congress, according to The New York Times. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are led by the opposition Republican Party, and its leaders have indicated they are confident they have enough votes to overturn Obama’s veto.
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President Barack Obama vetoed legislation Friday that would allow families of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia for any role in the plot, setting up an extraordinary confrontation with a Congress that unanimously backed the bill and has vowed to uphold it. After the JASTA was passed by Congress, just two days before the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council expressed “profound worry” over the bill.
Families of the victims spent years lobbying lawmakers for the right to sue the kingdom in USA court for any role elements of Saudi Arabia’s government may have had in the attacks.
Obama’s long-anticipated veto of the measure, known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, is the 12th of his presidency.
Furthermore, he argued, the measure would be “detrimental to US national interests more broadly”.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Kentucky) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.) said they expected their members would vote to override the President next week. Obama has only used his veto power 11 other times in his presidency, and has never had his veto overturned.
Republican leaders in Congress expect the override to pass. Yet the Senate would be the greater challenge.
With politicians eager to return home to campaign, a vote could come early next week.
“The bill is not balanced, sets a unsafe precedent, and has real potential to destabilize vital bilateral relationships and the global economy”, GE Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who supports the bill. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, normally an ally of Obama, criticized the move as well.
The legislation gives victims’ families the right to sue in USA court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks that killed thousands in NY, the Washington, D.C., area and Pennsylvania.
A coalition of 9/11 victims’ families, meanwhile, said they were “outraged and dismayed”.
The Saudi government has lobbied heavily to stop the bill, as has the European Union.
Under the terms of the Bill, courts would be permitted to waive a claim of foreign sovereign immunity when an act of terrorism occurs inside USA borders. Opponents say that’s a slippery slope considering that the U.S.is frequently accused wrongly by its foes of supporting terrorism.
In a letter Friday to his GOP colleagues, Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, amplified the military’s concerns and urged Republicans to study the bill’s consequences. “Many of those countries do not respect the rule of law, and we can not expect their responses to be as measured and narrow as ours”.
The 9/11 attacks were the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil, and they were met with an unprecedented U.S. Government response. Families of the victims spent years lobbying for the right to sue the kingdom in USA courts for any role elements of Saudi Arabia’s government may have played.
Saudi Arabia has always been accused of supporting the hijackers – charges which Saudi leadership strongly denies.
“What the president is imagining is this will create an environment where every court system in the world starts bringing the United States up on charges in foreign courts, and the United States has to defend itself”, Alterman said to the Post. The administration was also apprehensive about undermining a hard yet strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia. But the administration has lobbied aggressively since then in an attempt to persuade lawmakers to withdraw support for the bill and found some members who were sympathetic to Obamas arguments.
The Bill, which has strained already tense relations with a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, passed the House by voice vote earlier this month.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said she supports the measure. Congress could override the president’s action, and many Washington observers feel that such a rebuff to Obama is likely.
A senior Saudi prince reportedly threatened to pull billions of dollars out of United States assets if it becomes law, but Saudi officials now distance themselves from that claim.
“We also make a strong case that the most effective way for the United States to confront state sponsors of terrorism is to level a government-wide designation against them and take appropriate steps, including sanctions, to isolate them from the United States and the rest of the global community, that that is a forceful way to compel them to stop supporting terrorism”, he said.
“Saudi Arabia has always been considered the primary source of al Qaeda funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization”, the commission’s report reads.
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The US-Saudi relationship had already been strained by Obama’s engagement with Saudi’s Shia foe Iran and the July release of a secret report on Saudi involvement in the attacks.
