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Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill

By MARK MAZZETTIAPRIL 15, 2016
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President Obama at a Sept. 11 ceremony in 2015. The Obama administration argues that the bill would put Americans at legal risk overseas. CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times WASHINGTON 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 a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill's passage, according to administration officials and congressional aides from both parties, and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation.
Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom's message personally last month during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts.
Several outside economists are skeptical that the Saudis will follow through, saying that such a sell-off would be difficult to execute and would end up crippling the kingdom's economy. But the threat is another sign of the escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
The administration, which argues that the legislation would put Americans at legal risk overseas, has been lobbying so intently against the bill that some lawmakers and families of Sept. 11 victims are infuriated. In their view, the Obama administration has consistently sided with the kingdom and has thwarted their efforts to learn what they believe to be the truth about the role some Saudi officials played in the terrorist plot.
"It's stunning to think that our government would back the Saudis over its own citizens," said Mindy Kleinberg, whose husband died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and who is part of a group of victims' family members pushing for the legislation.
President Obama will arrive in Riyadh on Wednesday for meetings with King Salman and other Saudi officials. It is unclear whether the dispute over the Sept. 11 legislation will be on the agenda for the talks.
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A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Saudi officials have long denied that the kingdom had any role in the Sept. 11 plot, and the 9/11 Commission found "no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization." But critics have noted that the commission's narrow wording left open the possibility that less senior officials or parts of the Saudi government could have played a role. Suspicions have lingered, partly because of the conclusions of a 2002 congressional inquiry into the attacks that cited some evidence that Saudi officials living in the United States at the time had a hand in the plot.
Those conclusions, contained in 28 pages of the report, still have not been released publicly.
The dispute comes as bipartisan criticism is growing in Congress about Washington's alliance with Saudi Arabia, for decades a crucial American ally in the Middle East and half of a partnership that once received little scrutiny from lawmakers. Last week, two senators introduced a resolution that would put restrictions on American arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which have expanded during the Obama administration.
Families of the Sept. 11 victims have used the courts to try to hold members of the Saudi royal family, Saudi banks and charities liable because of what the plaintiffs charged was Saudi financial support for terrorism. These efforts have largely been stymied, in part because of a 1976 law that gives foreign nations some immunity from lawsuits in American courts.
The Senate bill is intended to make clear that the immunity given to foreign nations under the law should not apply in cases where nations are found culpable for terrorist attacks that kill Americans on United States soil. If the bill were to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the president, it could clear a path for the role of the Saudi government to be examined in the Sept. 11 lawsuits.

David Guyatt Wrote:Why is the NY Times, of all US newspapers running this story? What's the underlying deep story? A few years ago the NYT and WP wouldn't have even considered running this.

Paul Rigby Wrote:

David Guyatt Wrote:Why is the NY Times, of all US newspapers running this story? What's the underlying deep story? A few years ago the NYT and WP wouldn't have even considered running this.

If in doubt, or merely confused, as most of us are most of the time, I find it helps to reverse engineer the problem. Looked at from a very different angle, it would appear to be about the US putting pressure on the Saudis.

To what ends (there are always more than one) though?

Take your pick. But given the nature to the threat to the Saudis, and its timing, I think Washington is offering Riyadh a choice - commit certain suicide by release of the report or take your chances by doing as we want on a broad range of policies utterly disastrous for the House of S.

The timing would suggest a warning about the imminent launch of the gold-backed yuan.

Lauren Johnson Wrote:A reminder: Israel and SA are becoming more cozy towards allying against Iran. How that applies, dunno.

Paul Rigby Wrote:

Lauren Johnson Wrote:A reminder: Israel and SA are becoming more cozy towards allying against Iran. How that applies, dunno.

The US, post-WWII, has invariably used regional hegemons, sometimes in nominal, at others actual, opposition to each other, to rule the world*, so what we appear to be witnessing is a grand revision of Middle East assignments, with Iran set to replace Saudi Arabia, which is to be sundered and occupied (after economic collapse and perhaps after a brief occupation by ISIS or some other CIA pseudo-gang).

There is real urgency in this instance, as Iran is set to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation this year. There are any number of hurdles to be surmounted by Washington to win this ambitious prize. What DC doesn't need is Riyadh acting in its own self-interest during the race - hence the sword of Damocles that is the 9/11 nonsense.

* So much for the novelty of the concept "leading from behind" - Obama & Clinton, most notably over the invasion and destruction of Libya, were merely reverting to the preferred traditional American strategy of using regional proxies, in this case, Britain and France.

David Guyatt Wrote:Could well be. Both China and Russia have been buying gold massively. And yet with Iran coming on stream again when there is already a glut on the black stuff on the market, I wonder what Saudi could do that the US may be pressuring them to do? Any thoughts.