Fifteen out of 19 men who hijacked commercial airliners and used them as missiles to target the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were Saudi subjects.
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Long before the House approved the legislation, president Obama said that he fully intends to veto the legislation if it makes it to his desk.
The White House also has cautioned that if the door is opened for USA citizens to take the Saudis to court, then a foreign country could in turn sue the United States.
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, said the USA government should be more concerned about the families of the victims than “diplomatic niceties”.
“The legislation gives the victims’ families access to the courts, to the rule of law”.
“That’s for a jury of Americans to decide”, Poe said.
An aircraft fires missiles during the Northern Thunder exercises, in Hafr Al-Batin, near Saudi Arabia’s border with Iraq, March 10, 2016. The timing of the vote could be seen as an additional slap at the kingdom, which was preparing for the annual hajj pilgrimage beginning Saturday.
The bill passed by a voice vote two days before the 15th anniversary of the attacks.
The bill’s proponents disputed the argument that there will be a boomerang effect if the measure is signed into law.
Supporters of the legislation have said that countries that have done nothing wrong and don’t support terrorists shouldn’t be concerned about effects of the legislation.
It is all symbolic in the United States.
Right before Friday’s vote, House members from both parties briefly adjourned to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks.
The Saudis, who deny responsibility for the 2001 attacks, had strongly objected to the bill. Because the US and Saudi are now in talks about the war on ISIS.
“This legislation would change long-standing, global law regarding sovereign immunity”, Earnest said, adding that Obama continues to harbour “serious concerns” that this legislation would make the USA vulnerable in other court systems around the world. Additionally, the bill authorizes federal courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over and impose liability on a person who commits, or aids, abets, or conspires to commit, an act of global terrorism against a USA national. Those pages did not significantly add to the information that had already been made public through other documents and reports.
Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes the bill, The New York Times reported in April. The bill would deny Saudi Arabia the ability to invoke sovereign immunity against lawsuits in United States courts.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen.
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But the two Democratic senators argued in their letter that if the Saudi government isn’t connected to the attacks, then “it has nothing to fear from litigation”.
