GOP looks into 9/11-bill fixes after override of veto on suits

Obama team assails Congress as consequences are sinking in

 In this Sept. 13, 2016 file photo, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., second from left, standing with, from left, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, of Texas, listens to a question during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington.
In this Sept. 13, 2016 file photo, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., second from left, standing with, from left, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, of Texas, listens to a question during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington.

WASHINGTON -- The White House lashed out at Congress on Thursday, a day after Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly overrode President Barack Obama's veto of a bill to allow families of the 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia.

Top GOP leaders, meanwhile, expressed buyer's remorse and vowed to fix the bill.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both said the measure, the only law enacted over Obama's veto in his eight years as president, needed repairs. McConnell said the law may have "unintended ramifications," and Ryan said "there may be some work to be done" to make sure it doesn't lead to U.S. service members overseas being sued.

"Everybody was aware of who the potential beneficiaries were, but nobody really had focused on the downside in terms of our international relationships," McConnell told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference.

The legislation gives victims' families the right to sue in U.S. court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks. Courts would be permitted to waive a claim of foreign sovereign immunity when an act of terrorism occurred inside U.S. borders.

Supporters said the families of 9/11 victims should be able to pursue justice against Saudi Arabia for its alleged backing of the attackers. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers were Saudi nationals. Nearly 3,000 people in New York, the Washington, D.C., area, and Pennsylvania died in the terror attacks.

The White House had long raised concerns about the law, warning that it could affect Saudi Arabia's cooperation with the U.S. in fighting terrorism. Senior national security officials also argued that it could trigger lawsuits from people in other countries seeking redress for injuries or deaths caused by military actions in which the U.S. may have had a role.

But top lawmakers said the White House didn't press those warnings until it was too late and the bill was already barreling its way through Congress. Other lawmakers acknowledged that they didn't pay much attention to the bill.

That earned McConnell and others a scathing response from the White House, which said lawmakers didn't know what they were voting for.

"What's true in elementary school is true in the United States Congress: Ignorance is not an excuse," said spokesman Josh Earnest.

Earnest said the president had publicly discussed the bill's potential negative impact in April. The Senate passed the bill by voice vote in May. The president, administration officials and other national security experts wrote letters detailing concerns in recent weeks -- though many of the letters came after the House backed the bill on Sept. 9.

"I think what we've seen in the United States Congress is a pretty classic case of rapid onset buyer's remorse," Earnest said.

McConnell, R-Ky., said the White House was too slow to warn about the "potential consequences" of the measure. Both the House and Senate overwhelmingly overrode Obama's veto of the measure Wednesday.

McConnell said he told the president recently that the 9/11 victims bill "was an example of an issue that we should have talked about much earlier."

McConnell said the dynamic involving the bill was what happens when there is "failure to communicate early about the potential consequences of a piece of legislation that was obviously very popular."

Other top Republicans and Democrats such as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., are already working on proposed fixes to the law.

"We want to make sure that the 9/11 victims and their families have their day in court. At the same time, I would like to think there may be some work to be done to protect our service members overseas from any kind of -- any kind of legal ensnarements that could occur, any kind of retribution," Ryan said.

In a statement, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was their "hope that wisdom will prevail and that Congress will take the necessary steps to correct this legislation in order to avoid the serious unintended consequences that may ensue."

In the Arab world, the bill prompted reactions of outrage and ridicule among some. Many critics say the bill reinforces a long-held perception in the Middle East that the U.S. only demands justice for its own victims of terrorism, despite decades of U.S. interventions around the world.

Others support the bill but point out that the U.S. is backing a Saudi-led intervention in Yemen that has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians there.

Two Arabic hashtags were trending on Twitter when the bill was passed Wednesday, one referring directly to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, and the other simply titled: #TheAmericanTerrorism.

Some Arabic Twitter users shared a photo montage that depicted U.S. military actions in Japan and Vietnam, as well as naked Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison being humiliated by smiling U.S. troops. It read: "Japan, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan can't wait for JASTA to be implemented so they can, in turn, prosecute the U.S."

Information for this article was contributed by Kathleen Hennessey and Aya Batrawy of The Associated Press.

A Section on 09/30/2016

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