Obama: Congress' veto override of 9/11 bill 'a mistake'
Thursday September 29, 2016
US president says Senate's vote to override his veto of legislation would "set a dangerous precedent".
"If we eliminate this notion of sovereign immunity, then our men and women in uniform around the world could potentially start seeing ourselves subject to reciprocal loss," Obama said during a town hall meeting-style interview on CNN, referring to potential lawsuits.
Earlier on Wednesday, the US Congress passed into law the controversial bill that allows family members of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for its alleged backing of the attackers.
Both the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday in favour of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA.
"The White House and the executive branch [are] far more interested in diplomatic considerations," said Senator Chuck Schumer, a sponsor of the bill. "We're more interested in the families and in justice."
The vote was a blow to Obama and to Saudi Arabia - one of the US' oldest allies in the Arab world.
Obama,
who vetoed the measure last week, said in a letter to Senate leaders on
Tuesday that other countries could use JASTA to justify similar
immunity exceptions to target US policies and activities that they
oppose.
"If any of these litigants were to win judgements -
based on foreign domestic laws as applied by foreign courts - they would
begin to look to the assets of the US government held abroad to satisfy
those judgments, with potentially serious financial consequences for
the United States," Obama said at the time.
Obama's veto was overturned in Wednesday's congressional vote - the first override of his presidency.
Fifteen
of the 19 men who carried out the 2001 attacks were Saudi nationals.
Families of the victims spent years lobbying lawmakers for the right to
sue the kingdom in US courts for any role elements of Saudi Arabia's
government may have played.
Saudi Arabia has long denied any
involvement in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Riyadh
strongly objected to the bill.
Al Jazeera requested comment from the Saudi embassy in Washington but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Stephen
Kinzer, a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and
Public Affairs at Brown University, said the eight-decade-long US-Saudi
relationship was "entering into a new phase".
Other analysts
warned that Saudi Arabia could, in response to the law, pull billions of
dollars from the US economy and persuade close allies in the Gulf
Cooperation Council to scale back counter-terrorism cooperation,
investment, and US access to important regional military bases.
"This
should be clear to America and to the rest of the world: When one GCC
state is targeted unfairly, the others stand around it," said
Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, an Emirati Gulf specialist and professor of
political science at United Arab Emirates University.
"All the states will stand by Saudi Arabia in every way possible."
Chas
Freeman, former US assistant secretary of defence and ambassador to
Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm, said the Saudis could
respond to the law in ways that risk US strategic interests, such as
permissive rules for overflight between Europe and Asia, and the Qatari
air base from which US military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and
Syria are directed and supported.
"The souring of relations and
curtailing of official contacts that this legislation would inevitably
produce could also jeopardise Saudi cooperation against anti-American
terrorism," he said.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters in June that the US had the most to lose if JASTA was enacted.
Joseph
Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International
Economics, said estimates put the figure of official Saudi assets in the
US at between $500bn and $1 trillion, when considering potential
foreign bank deposits and offshore accounts.
Obama: Congress' veto override of 9/11 bill 'a mistake'
US President Barack Obama has called the Senate's vote to override his veto on a bill that allows families of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia's government a mistake.