Sue the Saudis for 9/11? Not so fast.
The urge to find justice for the families of 9/11 victims is so strong that it’s hard to stand in the way of anything that seems to help them.
That emotional appeal persuaded Congress, which is normally bitterly divided, to pass a bipartisan measure that supporters said would ease the way for those families to sue Saudi Arabia for its alleged complicity in the attacks.
But emotion is no way to run foreign policy in a dangerous world. Worse yet, this measure promises far more than it can deliver to grieving 9/11 families.
President Obama did the right thing last week when he vetoed the bill. And in a confrontation expected to play out Wednesday, senators would show more courage by dropping their threats to override Obama’s veto than by sticking with their misguided measure. If Congress overrides, which requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate and the House, it would be the first time an Obama veto hasn’t been upheld.
A focus on the politics and optics has obscured the facts, not an unusual scenario in Washington. Anyone who opposes the measure is viewed as abandoning 9/11 families. But beneath that simplistic view, here’s what’s really going on.
More than a decade ago, families of 9/11 victims filed lawsuits against Saudi Arabia, seeking to hold the oil-rich nation accountable for allegedly helping to bankroll the 9/11 plotters. The families ran up against a “sovereign immunity” law that shields foreign governments from certain lawsuits, and a federal appeals court has repeatedly blocked their efforts. Similar laws shield the U.S. in foreign countries.
In a last-ditch effort to help the families, Congress moved to change the laws. Doing so would have several serious downsides.
In essence, such lawsuits put U.S. foreign policy in the hands of trial lawyers and their clients, instead of where it belongs, with the president and the secretary of State. Weakening sovereign immunity could invite retaliation, opening the military and other U.S. officials abroad to similar lawsuits from other countries filed in courts around the world.
Most of all, the measure Obama vetoed raises false hopes for families that should not have to suffer more. For one thing, the measure allows the attorney general to intervene in the lawsuits and potentially slow them down indefinitely. Since courts work at a snail’s pace already, this could leave families dangling for years.
In addition, according to University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck, the measure no longer gives families — even if they succeed after years in court — a way to collect monetary damages from Saudi Arabia.
Although 15 of the 19 hijackers who attacked America came from Saudi Arabia, no hard evidence links the Saudi government to the plot. Twenty-eight pages of material viewed by the 9/11 Commission, and finally declassified this summer, contain unconfirmed tidbits about ties between members of the Saudi royal family and several of the hijackers, but no smoking guns.
The bill Obama vetoed has plenty of international downside, including inviting retaliation against the U.S., but little of the benefit it promises. Grieving 9/11 families deserve better.