Congress overrides Obama veto on 9/11 bill

THE United States Congress yesterday forced through a bill that will allow the families of victims of the September 11 attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia, overriding a veto by Barack Obama for the first time in his eightyear-long presidency.

Striking a serious blow to the White House, the legislation is also expected to cause major diplomatic fallout, with countries including Britain fearing it could leave them vulnerable to lawsuits and endanger military and intelligence personnel.

“It’s a dangerous precedent,” Mr Obama said. “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.”

While Saudi Arabia has never admitted playing a role in the September 11 terror attacks, 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, and there have been suspicions that some received support from individuals with possible connections to the kingdom’s government.

But in practice, the scope of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which was a decade in the making, may be much wider than Saudi lawsuits, as it would allow an American citizen to bring a case against any country they claim financed or otherwise aided terrorism on American soil.

President Obama vetoed the bill ear- lier this month on the basis that it would erode “sovereign immunity”, a long-held principle of international law that protects a country from being sued in the courts of another country. Mr Obama warned that stripping this away could backfire, prompting other countries to sue the US for acts on their soil.

As Congress prepared to override the president’s veto yesterday. John Brennan, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency warned that JASTA would have “grave implications for the national security of the United States”.

“The principle of sovereign immunity protects US officials every day, and is rooted in reciprocity. If we fail to uphold this standard for other countries, we place our own nation’s officials in danger,” he said.

“No country has more to lose from undermining that principle than the United States – and few institutions would be at greater risk than CIA.”

Earlier this week British intelligence officials expressed their concerns about the effect of the bill, with sources telling The Daily Telegraph they feared it could make Britain vulnerable to hostile lawsuits by American lawyers attempting to prove that British-based jihadists had been involved in terror plots against US targets.

Last week the European Union submitted a letter to Congress urging politicians not to override Mr Obama’s veto. Supporters of the legislation, however, argue that it is alarmist to claim the bill would override sovereign immunity.

‘No country has more to lose from undermining the principle than the United States’