Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-07-05174/USCOURTS-caDC-07-05174-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries Company
Appellant
Salah El Din Ahmed Mohammed Idris
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 7, 2008 Decided March 27, 2009 

No. 07-5174 

EL-SHIFA PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES COMPANY AND 

SALAH EL DIN AHMED MOHAMMED IDRIS, 

APPELLANTS

v. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

______ 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 01cv00731) 

Christian G. Vergonis argued the cause for appellants. 

With him on the briefs were Stephen J. Brogan, Timothy J. 

Finn, and Katherine E. Stern. 

C. Frederick Beckner III, Deputy Assistant Attorney 

General, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for 

appellee. With him on the brief were Jeffrey S. Bucholtz, 

Acting Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey A. Taylor, U.S. 

Attorney, and Mark B. Stern and Dana J. Martin, Attorneys. 

Before: GINSBURG, HENDERSON, and GRIFFITH, Circuit 

Judges. 

USCA Case #07-5174 Document #1172578 Filed: 03/27/2009 Page 1 of 26
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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH. 

Opinion concurring in the judgment in part and 

dissenting in part filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG. 

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: In 1998, the President of the 

United States ordered a missile strike against a 

pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that he believed was connected 

to the terrorist activities of Osama bin Laden. The owners of 

the plant sued the United States, challenging several allegedly 

defamatory statements made by senior executive branch 

officials justifying the strike as well as the government’s 

failure to compensate them for the destruction of the plant. 

The district court dismissed plaintiffs’ complaint, and we 

affirm on the ground that it presents a nonjusticiable political 

question. 

I. 

Because we are asked to review the grant of a motion to 

dismiss, we treat the factual allegations in the complaint as 

true. Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence & 

Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163, 164 (1993). In August 

1998, the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden bombed 

American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Days later, the 

United States responded with a missile strike against a 

pharmaceutical plant in North Khartoum, Sudan, owned by 

plaintiffs El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries Company (ElShifa) and Salah El Din Ahmed Mohammed Idris. 

President Clinton justified the attack by publicly claiming 

that the El-Shifa plant was a “terrorists’ base of operation” 

and “associated with the bin Laden network.” Consistent with 

this claim, high-ranking executive branch officials also stated 

their belief that bin Laden financed the plant, which was 

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owned by the Sudan Military Industrial Complex Corporation, 

made no commercial products, and, most ominously, was 

involved in the production of chemical weapons. To support 

this latter accusation, the officials pointed to a soil sample 

from the plant that included a chemical known as Oethylmethyl phosphonothioic acid, referred to as EMPTA, 

which is used in the manufacture of nerve gas. 

Plaintiffs allege the Clinton Administration was wrong on 

all counts about its justifications for striking the plant. Neither 

bin Laden nor the Sudan Military Industrial Complex 

Corporation had ties to the plant, no chemical weapons agents 

such as EMPTA were ever present, and the plant produced 

only medicinal products, including over half the 

pharmaceuticals used in Sudan. 

Once they learned that their initial justifications for the 

attack were false, Clinton Administration officials offered a 

new explanation that portrayed Idris, the actual owner of the 

plant, as a friend and supporter of terrorists. In particular, and 

as reported in several newspapers, anonymous executive 

branch officials claimed Idris was linked to bin Laden. The 

Washington Post, for example, reported “one official” as 

saying, “What we’re learning about [Idris] leads us to suspect 

that he’s involved in money laundering, that he’s involved in 

representing a lot of bin Laden’s interests in Sudan.” Vernon 

Loeb & Bradley Graham, Sudan Plant Was Probed Months 

Before Attack, WASH. POST, Sept. 1, 1998, at A14. According 

to plaintiffs, these statements were false. 

Plaintiffs took several actions to recoup their losses from 

the attack. They first filed a lawsuit in the United States Court 

of Federal Claims seeking $50 million as just compensation 

under the Takings Clause of the Constitution. The court 

dismissed the suit as nonjusticiable under the political 

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question doctrine and the United States Court of Appeals for 

the Federal Circuit affirmed. See El-Shifa Pharm. Indus. Co. 

v. United States, 378 F.3d 1346, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2004). 

Plaintiffs also filed an administrative claim with the Central 

Intelligence Agency (CIA) under the Federal Tort Claims Act 

(FTCA), seeking compensation for the destruction of the plant 

as well as a retraction of the allegedly defamatory statements 

about El-Shifa and Idris. 

After the CIA denied the claim, plaintiffs filed this action 

against the United States under the FTCA seeking at least $50 

million in damages for the government’s alleged negligence 

and trespass in carrying out the attack. At issue on appeal are 

two further claims. The plaintiffs also sought declaratory 

judgments that the statements linking them to “Osama bin 

Laden, international terrorist organizations and the production 

of chemical weapons” were false and that the government’s 

refusal to compensate them for the attack violated the law of 

nations. The district court granted the government’s motion to 

dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of subject matter 

jurisdiction, see FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(1), concluding that 

sovereign immunity barred all of plaintiffs’ claims. El-Shifa 

Pharm. Indus. Co. v. United States, 402 F. Supp. 2d 267, 

270–73 (D.D.C. 2005). The court also noted that the 

complaint “likely present[ed] a nonjusticiable political 

question.” Id. at 276. Plaintiffs filed a motion to alter the 

judgment with respect to their claims for equitable relief, 

which the district court denied. El-Shifa Pharm. Indus. Co. v. 

United States, No. 01-731 (D.D.C. Mar. 28, 2007). 

On appeal, plaintiffs challenge only the dismissal of their 

claims for equitable relief for defamation and under the law of 

nations. They restrict their defamation claim to statements 

about Idris and their law of nations claim to the refusal to pay 

compensation for the attack. We have jurisdiction under 28 

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U.S.C. § 1291 (2000), and we review the district court’s grant 

of the motion to dismiss de novo, see Carter v. Wash. Metro. 

Area Transit Auth., 503 F.3d 143, 145 (D.C. Cir. 2007). 

II. 

The government urges us to affirm the district court’s 

dismissal of this case on the ground that it presents a 

nonjusticiable political question. Because we affirm on this 

basis, we do not address the government’s other arguments. 

See Nemariam v. Fed. Democratic Republic of Eth., 491 F.3d 

470, 481 (D.C. Cir. 2007). 

Early in the nation’s history, Chief Justice John Marshall, 

in seminal words that shaped the development of the political 

question doctrine, explained that the limited authority the 

Constitution grants to the judiciary to resolve disputes does 

not extend to all complaints about the actions of the 

Executive: 

The province of the court is, solely, to decide on the 

rights of individuals, not to enquire how the executive, 

or executive officers, perform duties in which they 

have a discretion. Questions, in their nature political, 

or which are, by the constitution and laws, submitted 

to the executive, can never be made in this court. 

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 170 (1803). In 

Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962), the Supreme Court 

explained that the political question doctrine precludes courts 

from considering cases that involve 

a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of 

the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack 

of judicially discoverable and manageable standards 

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for resolving it; or the impossibility of deciding 

without an initial policy determination of a kind 

clearly for nonjudicial discretion; or the impossibility 

of a court’s undertaking independent resolution 

without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate 

branches of government; or an unusual need for 

unquestioning adherence to a political decision already 

made; or the potentiality of embarrassment from 

multifarious pronouncements by various departments 

on one question. 

Id. at 217. As Baker’s first factor indicates, the doctrine is 

“primarily a function of the separation of powers,” id. at 210, 

and prohibits the judiciary from reviewing “policy choices 

and value determinations constitutionally committed for 

resolution to the halls of Congress or the confines of the 

Executive Branch,” Japan Whaling Ass’n v. Am. Cetacean 

Soc’y, 478 U.S. 221, 230 (1986) (emphasis added). 

Disputes involving national security and foreign policy 

decisions are “quintessential sources of political questions.” 

Bancoult v. McNamara, 445 F.3d 427, 433 (D.C. Cir. 2006). 

The Constitution places these policy decisions in the hands of 

the President and Congress—not the judiciary. See Oetjen v. 

Cent. Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297, 302 (1918) (“The conduct of 

the foreign relations of our government is committed by the 

Constitution to the executive and legislative—‘the political’—

departments of the government, and the propriety of what 

may be done in the exercise of this political power is not 

subject to judicial inquiry or decision.”); Schneider v. 

Kissinger, 412 F.3d 190, 194 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (“[T]here could 

. . . be no doubt that decision-making in the fields of foreign 

policy and national security is textually committed to the 

political branches of government.”); Comm. of U.S. Citizens 

Living in Nicar. v. Reagan, 859 F.2d 929, 933–34 (D.C. Cir. 

USCA Case #07-5174 Document #1172578 Filed: 03/27/2009 Page 6 of 26
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1988) (noting that “foreign policy decisions are the subject of 

. . . a textual commitment”). 

Even though “it is error to suppose that every case or 

controversy which touches foreign relations lies beyond 

judicial cognizance,” Baker, 369 U.S. at 211, the political 

question doctrine looms over plaintiffs’ claims, this being a 

case that arises out of a decision to launch a military attack. 

We begin our analysis with a proposition upon which both 

parties agree: it is not for the federal courts to review the 

President’s battlefield decisions. Appellee’s Br. 18–21; 

Appellants’ Reply Br. 2; see Gilligan v. Morgan, 413 U.S. 1, 

10–11 (1973); Bancoult, 445 F.3d at 436; Luftig v. 

McNamara, 373 F.2d 664, 665–66 (D.C. Cir. 1967) (per 

curiam). President Clinton, in his capacity as Commander-inChief, fired missiles at a target of his choosing to pursue a 

military objective he had determined was in the national 

interest. Under the Constitution, this decision is immune from 

judicial review. 

Although plaintiffs attempt to distance their law of 

nations and defamation claims from the nonjusticiable 

question of why the President ordered the missile strike, both 

claims nonetheless present questions “inextricably 

intertwined” with the underlying decision to attack the ElShifa pharmaceutical plant. Plaintiffs’ law of nations claim 

asserts that under customary international law a state must 

compensate a foreign national for the unjustified destruction 

of property. Plaintiffs allege the United States violated this 

principle by failing to compensate them for the destruction of 

their plant. In passing judgment on this claim, the district 

court could not avoid becoming arbiter of the President’s 

battlefield actions and would need to determine whether his 

decision to bomb the plant was justified. See Appellants’ 

Reply Br. 4 (acknowledging this issue “could require the 

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Court to consider whether El-Shifa was, in fact, a chemical 

weapons facility”). 

This a court cannot do. We have consistently held that 

courts are not a forum for second-guessing the merits of 

foreign policy and national security decisions textually 

committed to the political branches. See Gonzalez-Vera v. 

Kissinger, 449 F.3d 1260, 1263–64 (D.C. Cir. 2006) 

(dismissing a suit concerning alleged unlawful U.S. assistance 

to the Pinochet regime because the challenged actions “were 

‘inextricably intertwined with the underlying’ foreign policy 

decisions constitutionally committed to the political branches” 

(quoting Bancoult, 445 F.3d at 436)); see also Harbury v. 

Hayden, 522 F.3d 413, 420 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (dismissing a suit 

against American officials alleged to have unlawfully 

conspired with the Guatemalan army because it sought a 

“determination[] whether the alleged conduct should have 

occurred, which impermissibly would require examining the 

wisdom of the underlying policies”); Bancoult, 445 F.3d at 

436 (dismissing a suit challenging the tactical measures 

allegedly taken in depopulating island territories to build a 

naval base because the measures were “inextricably 

intertwined” with an exercise of “the foreign policy and 

national security powers entrusted . . . to the political 

branches”); Schneider, 412 F.3d at 194–95 (dismissing a suit 

alleging that the United States assisted in the kidnapping, 

torture, and death of a Chilean general during the Cold War 

because it challenged a foreign policy decision textually 

committed to the political branches). This precedent controls 

our decision here. Plaintiffs’ law of nations claim asks us to 

review whether the President was justified in striking the ElShifa plant. Courts have no business hearing such claims.1

 

 

1

 We disagree with our dissenting colleague’s conclusion that the 

law of nations claim has been forfeited. See Dissenting Op. at 3. 

USCA Case #07-5174 Document #1172578 Filed: 03/27/2009 Page 8 of 26
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Plaintiffs’ defamation claim suffers from a similar flaw. 

The complaint plainly acknowledges that executive branch 

officials offered the allegedly defamatory statements in 

justification of the President’s decision to attack the plant. 

Compl. ¶ 1 (stating the action arises out of “false and 

defamatory statements made by United States government 

officials seeking to justify [the destruction of the El-Shifa 

pharmaceutical plant]”); id. ¶ 64 (concluding that U.S. 

officials offered these statements as “a new justification for 

their attack”). Consider the review the district court would 

need to undertake in ruling on this claim. To prevail in their 

 

Plaintiffs fully brief the claim challenging the CIA’s failure to 

compensate, which the district court also addressed, and so it must 

be addressed here. The dissent assumes that the law of nations 

claim replicates the abandoned claim that the attack was unjustified. 

That reasoning mistakenly conflates the concepts of claims and 

issues. The claim in the challenge to the attack was that plaintiffs 

were entitled to a declaratory judgment that the President was 

wrong to order the strike (Claim 1). That claim has been forfeited. 

The law of nations claim is that plaintiffs are entitled to a 

declaratory judgment that the CIA wrongfully refused to 

compensate plaintiffs (Claim 2). An issue in Claim 2 is whether the 

President unjustifiably ordered the strike, for if the attack was 

justified no compensation was due. The question presented in 

Claim 1 is also an issue in Claim 2. The dissent wrongly concludes 

that because Claim 1 is forfeited and because it raises an issue in 

Claim 2, Claim 2 is also forfeited. Claim 1 challenged an action by 

the President, whose sovereign immunity is not waived by the 

Administrative Procedure Act (APA). By contrast, Claim 2 

challenges the action of a federal agency whose sovereign 

immunity is waived by the APA, 5 U.S.C. § 702 (2006). Crucially, 

the relief requested in Claim 1 ran against the President, while in 

Claim 2 it runs against the CIA. Although judicial review of Claim 

2 may require review of an issue presented in Claim 1, Claim 2 is 

not barred by sovereign immunity and is properly before us. 

USCA Case #07-5174 Document #1172578 Filed: 03/27/2009 Page 9 of 26
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defamation suit, the plaintiffs must show that the statements 

made to justify the attack were false. See generally

RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 558 (1977). The district 

court, then, could not avoid the question whether Idris was in 

fact associated with bin Laden, meaning a judicial decision 

for the plaintiffs would directly contradict the Clinton 

Administration’s ultimate stated justification for launching the 

missile strike. 

The dissent notes that this allegedly defamatory 

justification came after the plant was bombed and thus argues 

that the plaintiffs’ claim would not call into question the 

President’s true motivations for launching the missile strike. 

See Dissenting Op. at 6. But both Idris and the dissent admit 

that the challenged statements were offered in justification of 

the decision to bomb the plant. See id. at 8 (citing Compl. 

¶¶ 63–64). We have no trouble concluding that the President’s 

public justifications for discrete military action are always 

offered, in part at least, with strategic military, national 

security, or foreign policy objectives in mind. The making of 

such justifications is itself a policy decision that cannot be 

separated from the conduct of foreign relations and the 

exercise of the war power that it explains. See Appellee’s Br. 

15 (“[P]ublic statements about the bombing . . . are closely 

intertwined with the decision to launch the military strike.”).2

Accordingly, we conclude that a decision on the defamation 

claim would necessarily cross the barrier marked by the 

 

2

 According to the dissent, Idris can avoid dismissal here by stating 

that the President’s justifications for the missile strike were made 

not in furtherance of national security or foreign policy, but merely 

to avoid public embarrassment. See Dissenting Op. at 7–8. Implicit 

in the dissent’s argument on this point is a suggestion, which we 

reject, that plaintiffs can avoid the political question bar at the 

motion to dismiss stage by artful pleading that recasts the terms of a 

dispute to make it one properly reviewed by courts. 

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political question doctrine. See Schneider, 412 F.3d at 194 

(“[T]here could . . . be no doubt that decision-making in the 

fields of foreign policy and national security is textually 

committed to the political branches of government.”); cf. 

Wilson v. Libby, 535 F.3d 697, 704 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (holding 

that the political question doctrine did not apply in a case 

involving “disclosures made by high-level executive branch 

officials when speaking with the press” because plaintiffs did 

not “challenge[] any foreign policy or national security 

decisions”).3

 

The dissent responds by arguing that judicial review of 

the allegedly defamatory statements about Idris is no more of 

an intrusion upon the Executive’s national security decisions 

than is judicial review of, for example, an enemy combatant 

determination, which the political question doctrine does not 

forbid. See Dissenting Op. at 9–11 (citing Boumediene v. 

Bush, 128 S. Ct. 2229 (2008); Parhat v. Gates, 532 F.3d 834 

(D.C. Cir. 2008); Chai v. Dep’t of State, 466 F.3d 125 (D.C. 

Cir. 2006); Von Zedtwitz v. Sutherland, 26 F.2d 525 (D.C. 

Cir. 1928)). But none of the cases cited by the dissent 

involved a textual commitment of authority to the political 

branches. Boumediene found in the Suspension Clause a 

textual commitment to the judiciary of authority to review 

enemy combatant determinations resulting in prolonged 

 

3

 The dissent assumes that we find decisionmaking in these fields 

exclusively within the President’s Commander-in-Chief authority. 

See Dissenting Op. at 9–11. We express no such opinion. Rather, 

we simply rest our holding on the proposition that the conduct of 

our foreign relations is committed to the political departments, “and 

the propriety of what may be done in the exercise of this political 

power is not subject to judicial inquiry or decision,” Oetjen, 246 

U.S. at 302. 

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detention. See 128 S. Ct. at 2247. Likewise, in Parhat,

4 Chai,5

and Von Zedtwitz,

6

 we were not called upon to scrutinize 

decisions textually committed to a coordinate branch of 

government. In raising these cases, the dissent presents an 

interesting question concerning the boundary between 

decisions properly made by the judiciary and decisions 

constitutionally committed to the political branches. 

Fortunately, we need not decide where that boundary lies. 

Plaintiffs’ defamation claim presents a challenge to the 

Executive’s foreign policy and national security 

decisionmaking, two areas clearly outside our authority. 

III.

We conclude that this case presents a nonjusticiable 

political question. The judgment of the district court 

dismissing plaintiffs’ claims is 

Affirmed. 

 

4 Parhat, 532 F.3d at 839 (citing the Detainee Treatment Act, 

section 1005(e)(2)(A) of which gives this court “exclusive 

jurisdiction to determine the validity of any final decision of a 

Combatant Status Review Tribunal that an alien is properly 

detained as an enemy combatant”). 

5 Chai, 466 F.3d at 128–29 (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1189(c) (2006), 

which allows an entity designated as a terrorist organization under 

the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act to seek judicial 

review in this court). 

6 Von Zedtwitz, 26 F.2d at 153–54 (citing the Trading with the 

Enemy Act, section 9(a) of which provides for judicial review of 

certain seizures of property). 

USCA Case #07-5174 Document #1172578 Filed: 03/27/2009 Page 12 of 26
 GINSBURG, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment in 

part and dissenting in part: Salah El Din Ahmed Mohammed 

Idris and the El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries Company, 

which Idris allegedly owns, sued the United States following 

a missile strike against the Company’s plant in Sudan. The 

plaintiffs advanced several claims, only two of which remain 

at issue in this appeal. The Court holds both claims must be 

dismissed because they raise questions constitutionally 

committed not to the judicial but to the political branches, the 

alternative ground raised by the Government in the district 

court. 

I agree that the claim the United States violated the law 

of nations in striking the plant and failing to pay the plaintiffs 

compensation should be dismissed, but I do so because the 

plaintiffs did not preserve that claim; we therefore have no 

need to pass upon a constitutional issue. I believe the claim 

that various officers of the United States defamed Idris in the 

wake of the strike should be remanded to the district court for 

further proceedings; the complaint, which the Government 

has not yet answered, does not necessarily raise a political 

question and may be subject to objections that do not require 

us to reach the constitutional issue. 

I. The Law of Nations Claim 

The plaintiffs first allege the United States violated 

international law by “destroy[ing] the Plant without 

justification,” Compl. ¶ 112, and by failing “to use peaceful 

means to resolve its ... concerns,” id. ¶ 113, in contravention 

of the prohibition on the use of force in the Charter of the 

United Nations, id. ¶ 109. The breach of this international 

obligation, they say, triggers the responsibility of the United 

States to compensate them. Id. ¶¶ 110–11. The plaintiffs 

accordingly seek “[a] declaration that the ... attack on the ElShifa pharmaceutical plant violated the law of nations,” which 

USCA Case #07-5174 Document #1172578 Filed: 03/27/2009 Page 13 of 26
2 

declaration they say would restore “the reputations of ElShifa and Mr. Idris” by dispelling the “suspicion that they 

were engaged in the production of chemical weapons or other 

activities associated with terrorism,” id. ¶¶ 115–16. 

The district court dismissed the claim as barred by 

sovereign immunity, see Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 

Wheat.) 264, 380 (1821) (“a sovereign independent State is 

not suable, except by its own consent”); see also United 

States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 207–08 (1882), without reaching 

the Government’s alternative argument for dismissal based 

upon the constitutional bar to judicial resolution of a political 

question. Although the plaintiffs sued only the United States, 

they invoked § 702 of the Administrative Procedures Act, 

which provides a waiver of immunity for any suit against the 

United States “seeking relief other than money damages and 

stating a claim that an agency or an officer or employee 

thereof acted or failed to act in an official capacity or under 

color of legal authority,” 5 U.S.C. § 702, regardless whether 

the suit is brought under the APA, Trudeau v. FTC, 456 F.3d 

178, 186 (D.C. Cir. 2006). The district court held the waiver 

in the APA inapplicable, however, because the plaintiffs’ law 

of nations claim sought to impugn only the President’s 

decision to strike the plant and the President is not an 

“agency” within the meaning of the APA. 402 F. Supp. 2d 

267, 272–73 (2005); see Dalton v. Specter, 511 U.S. 462, 

476–77 (1994). 

On appeal, the plaintiffs do not take issue with the ruling 

that the waiver of sovereign immunity in § 702 is inapplicable 

insofar as they alleged the strike against the El-Shifa plant 

violated international law. Their opening brief states frankly 

“Plaintiffs no longer seek a declaration that the destruction of 

the plant ... violated international law.” In that respect, 

therefore, their claim is waived and there is no need for the 

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3 

 

court to reach the constitutional question whether the claim is 

barred by the political question doctrine. See Meijer, Inc. v. 

Biovail Corp., 533 F.3d 857, 863 (D.C. Cir. 2008). 

The plaintiffs do argue on appeal, however, as they did 

before the district court on motion to alter the judgment, that 

they were challenging not only the President’s decision to 

strike the plant but also “the CIA’s independent and final 

decision to deny compensation based on after-acquired 

evidence about the El-Shifa plant.” The waiver of sovereign 

immunity in the APA does apply to this claim because the 

CIA clearly is an “agency.” 

The claim nonetheless must be dismissed because the 

complaint faults the Government for failing to compensate the 

plaintiffs only upon the premise “that the destruction of the 

Plant was ... not justified under the law of nations.” See

Compl. ¶ 115. Having waived the argument that the strike 

against the plant violated the law of nations, the plaintiffs 

necessarily forfeited their challenge to the CIA’s failure to 

compensate them.* Accordingly, we have neither the need 

nor the occasion to address the Government’s argument that 

the plaintiffs’ law of nations claim raises a political question. 

*

 In a cryptic footnote the Court asserts I erroneously conclude the 

law of nations claim was forfeited by “conflat[ing] the concepts of 

claims and issues,” Ct. op. at 8–9 n.1, but, as noted in the text, the 

complaint asserts the CIA violated international law by failing to 

pay the plaintiffs compensation only because the attack “was ... not 

justified under the law of nations,” Compl. ¶ 115. Thus, the claim 

that the failure to pay compensation violated international law 

depends upon the question whether the strike violated international 

law, which the plaintiffs have waived regardless whether it is 

characterized as a “claim” or as an “issue.” 

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4 

II. The Claim for Defamation 

The second claim before us on appeal is that certain 

officers of the United States defamed Idris, giving rise to a 

“cause of action ... against the United States ... under both the 

common law ... and the APA.” It is worth repeating Idris’s 

allegations because, as the Court notes, we must “treat the 

factual allegations in the complaint as true.” Ct. op. at 2. 

According to Idris: President Clinton and various 

government officials initially justified the attack to the public 

on the ground that the plant, which was owned by the 

Sudanese Government, was a “chemical weapons-related 

facility” involved in the manufacture of EMPTA, Compl. ¶ 

27 (“In Sudan, they are ... manufacturing nerve gas which 

could kill us all”), had no commercial purpose, id. ¶ 35, and 

enjoyed the suspicious protection of the Sudanese military, id.

¶ 39. Moreover, a “senior intelligence officer” reported on 

the day of the strike that Osama “bin Laden has made 

financial contributions to the Sudanese Military Industrial 

Complex ... a distinct entity of which, we believe, the Shifa 

pharmaceutical facility is [a] part,” id. ¶ 43. Thus, “[t]he U.S. 

officials who authorized the attack did not know” Idris 

“owned El-Shifa at the time of the attack.” Id. ¶ 65. Within a 

few days after the strike, however, the press began to identify 

him as the owner of the plant, id. ¶ 66, and U.S. officials 

began to retract the public statements made initially in 

justification for the strike. “[R]ather than admit that a terrible 

mistake was made ... U.S. officials ... invent[ed] new 

justifications for” striking the El-Shifa plant. Id. ¶ 64. 

Officials claimed falsely and with reckless disregard for the 

truth that, among other things, (1) Idris is a financial 

supporter of the National Islamic Front; (2) “evidence 

obtained since the attack .... suggest[s] that Idris ... purchased 

the plant ... on bin Laden’s behalf”; (3) Idris “represent[s] a 

USCA Case #07-5174 Document #1172578 Filed: 03/27/2009 Page 16 of 26
5 

lot of bin Laden’s interests in Sudan”; and (4) Idris “has had 

financial dealings with members of Islamic Jihad” and 

“launders money for international Islamic groups.” Id. ¶ 66. 

As with the law of nations claim, Idris sought declaratory 

relief and argued the APA provided the requisite waiver of 

sovereign immunity. 

The district court dismissed the defamation claim 

because it erroneously read the complaint to seek damages, 

and therefore to be subject to the Federal Tort Claims Act, 

which does not waive sovereign immunity for claims of 

defamation seeking damages. 402 F. Supp. 2d at 272 (citing 

28 U.S.C. § 2680(h)). In his motion to alter the judgment 

Idris pointed to the waiver in the APA for suits seeking 

declaratory relief, 5 U.S.C. § 702. The court denied the 

motion, again without reaching the Government’s alternative 

argument that the case presented a political question, this time 

on the ground there had been no “final agency action,” as 

required by § 704 of the APA. No. Civ.A. 01-731, 2007 WL 

950082, at *1 (Mar. 28, 2007). 

In ruling upon the motion, the district court again erred: 

First, the CIA had denied Idris’s request for a retraction, 

which certainly seems to be final agency action. See Yousuf 

v. Samantar, 451 F.3d 248, 251 (D.C. Cir. 2006). In any 

event, “[t]he waiver [in § 702 of the APA] applies regardless 

of whether [the challenged conduct] constitutes ‘final agency 

action.’” Trudeau, 456 F.3d at 187. Finally, the requirement 

of final agency action in 5 U.S.C. § 704 limits only causes of 

action arising under the APA itself, id. at 190–91; here Idris 

invoked both the APA and the common law of defamation. 

Today the Court affirms the district court’s erroneous 

dismissal of Idris’s claim for defamation on the different but 

inapposite constitutional ground that the allegedly defamatory 

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6 

statements are “‘inextricably intertwined’ with the underlying 

decision to attack the El-Shifa pharmaceutical plant.” Ct. op. 

at 7. The Court first asserts that Idris’s “defamation claim 

suffers from a [flaw similar]” to that of his claim under 

international law. Id. at 9. The claim based upon 

international law, according to the Court, presents a political 

question because in adjudicating it, the district court “would 

need to determine whether [the President’s] decision to bomb 

the plant was justified.” Id. at 7. Apparently, however, the 

Court does not really — indeed, it could not reasonably — 

believe the district court, in adjudicating the defamation 

claim, would necessarily call into question the President’s 

decision: Idris contends the CIA’s statements came after and 

had nothing to do with the President’s reason for bombing the 

plant. See id. at 2–3; BILL CLINTON, MY LIFE 805 (2004). 

Instead, the Court reasons that, even if Idris’s claim “would 

not call into question the President’s true motivations for 

launching the missile strike,” it is nevertheless barred by the 

political question doctrine because the CIA’s post hoc 

justification may implicate other “strategic military, national 

security, or foreign policy objectives” of the President. Ct. 

op. at 10. In other words, the post hoc justification was itself 

a strategic military and foreign policy decision and therefore 

not subject to judicial review. 

The Court, however, merely speculates that strategic 

objectives were served by the CIA’s post hoc statements 

about Idris. For support the Court first musters the assertion 

that “public justifications for discrete military action are 

always offered, in part at least, with strategic ... objectives in 

mind.” Id. If, however, the allegedly defamatory statements 

themselves furthered the President’s conduct of military 

affairs, then surely the Government would explain how. 

USCA Case #07-5174 Document #1172578 Filed: 03/27/2009 Page 18 of 26
7 

The Government offers no such explanation in support of 

its motion to dismiss and therefore I am at a loss to 

understand why the Court struggles to create one for it. In 

order to imply the Government has explained how the CIA’s 

post hoc statements were strategic decisions, the Court quotes 

the assertion in the Government’s brief — as though it were 

evidence — that “‘public statements about the bombing 

[were] ... closely intertwined with the decision to launch the 

military strike.’” Id. Read in context, however, the 

Government’s statement is not even an attempt to argue the 

CIA’s post hoc justification was itself a strategic decision: 

As the Federal Circuit held in upholding the dismissal of 

plaintiffs’ takings claim under the political question 

doctrine, the Constitution provides the courts with no 

authority to review the President’s determination that the 

nation is “at risk of imminent attack” or his 

determination that private property overseas is enemy 

property that must be destroyed to “most effectively 

neutralize the possibility of attack.” ... The result does 

not change here because plaintiffs have challenged not 

only the [President’s] decision to bomb the El-Shifa 

plant, but also [the CIA’s] public statements about the 

bombing that themselves are closely intertwined with the 

decision to launch the military strike. 

Appellee’s Br. at 14–15 (internal citation omitted). Thus, far 

from explaining that the CIA’s post hoc statements were 

strategic decisions, the Government asserts only that a court 

cannot question the President’s decision to bomb the plant 

merely because the issue arises in the context of a claim for 

defamation. 

More important, in asserting the CIA had — or, more 

accurately, must have had — a strategic motivation, the Court 

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8 

refuses to accept as true Idris’s allegations. According to 

Idris, “U.S. officials,” facing “profoundly embarrassing” 

criticism from the press, simply invented a new justification 

for the attack “rather than admit ... a terrible mistake.” 

Compl. ¶¶ 63–64. The Court labels this allegation “artful 

pleading” designed to “recast[] the terms of a dispute to make 

it one properly reviewed by courts.” Ct. op. at 10 n.2. The 

Constitution does not, however, require us to ignore the rules 

governing a motion to dismiss simply because the 

Government has argued Idris’s defamation claim presents a 

political question. Indeed, factual development often is 

necessary to determine whether a suit presents a 

nonjusticiable political question. See, e.g., Zivotofsky ex rel. 

Ari Z. v. Sec’y of State, 444 F.3d 614, 619–20 (D.C. Cir. 

2006) (remanding to district court for it to develop facts 

related to whether suit presented political question). The 

Court can label Idris’s allegation an “artful” attempt to 

circumvent the Constitution only because the Court assumes 

(a) the CIA must have had a strategic objective in mind and 

(b) any challenge to a strategic decision necessarily raises a 

political question, even if the decision was only “in part” 

motivated by military or foreign policy objectives, Ct. op. at 

10. 

In any event, the Court errs in believing Idris’s claim 

necessarily raises a political question simply because it 

implicates a strategic decision. Apparently the Court believes 

the Constitution grants the Executive the unreviewable 

discretion to make defamatory statements even if they have 

nothing to do with the actual justification for a military 

decision because (or so the Court assumes) every public 

explanation of a military decision is “offered, in part at least, 

with strategic ... objectives in mind.” Id. That proposition is 

not only novel and frightening, it ignores Supreme Court 

precedent. 

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To hold that Idris’s claim for defamation necessarily

raises a political question, it is not enough that resolving the 

suit might (or might not) implicate a military decision of the 

President — any more than review of the Executive’s 

decision to detain a person as an enemy combatant might (or 

might not) reflect upon the military’s decision to seize that 

person in the war zone, see Boumediene v. Bush, 128 S. Ct. 

2229, 2262–74 (2008) (holding Detainee Treatment Act of 

2005 violates habeas corpus Suspension Clause, U.S. CONST. 

art. I, § 9, cl. 2, an aspect of separation of powers, because 

DTA does not allow detainee to introduce “previously 

unavailable exculpatory evidence”). In addressing the issues 

raised by such a suit, a court is asked neither to resolve any 

question of policy, cf. Ct. op. at 6, nor to “conduct ... the 

foreign relations of our government,” id. (quoting Oetjen v. 

Cent. Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297, 302 (1918)). 

Although the Court states it does not “find 

decisionmaking in [the] fields [of foreign policy and national 

security] exclusively within the President’s Commander-inChief authority,” id. at 11 n.3, implicit in the Court’s 

reasoning is the assumption that the Constitution bars the 

Congress from conferring upon Idris a cause of action to 

challenge the CIA’s statements, see, e.g., id. at 12 (“Plaintiffs’ 

defamation claim presents a challenge to the Executive’s 

foreign policy and national security decisionmaking, two 

areas clearly outside our authority”). Here, Idris asserts the 

CIA had a duty under both the common law and an Act of 

Congress (the APA) not to spread false information about 

him; if he is correct, then he should be able to call upon the 

courts to provide him the statutory remedy he seeks, see 

Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 211 (1962) (“it is error to 

suppose that every case or controversy which touches foreign 

relations lies beyond judicial cognizance”). It simply is not 

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the case under our Constitution that the Congress has no role 

in regulating the armed forces, see U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cls. 

11, 14; cf. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557, 126 S. Ct. 

2749, 2786 (2006) (President’s use of military commissions 

must comply with statutory law) — let alone the CIA’s use of 

defamatory statements — such that it may not impose upon 

the Executive a legal obligation for the breach of which an 

injured party will have a remedy at law. Idris may not be 

defeased of his right (if any there be), nor the judiciary ousted 

from its jurisdiction, solely because — as the Court would 

have it — the President “fired missiles at a target of his 

choosing,” Ct. op. at 7. 

For support the Court cites several cases in which 

plaintiffs have directly challenged military decisions of the 

President. Id. To be sure, a challenge to the President’s 

decisions regarding the “training, weaponry and orders” of 

the military presents a political question. Gilligan v. Morgan, 

413 U.S. 1, 4, 10 (1973) (internal quotation marks omitted) 

(dismissing suit challenging decision to send National Guard 

to quell civil disorder on college campus); see Bancoult v. 

McNamara, 445 F.3d 427, 436 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (dismissing 

challenge to “specific tactical measures allegedly taken to 

depopulate” island and to construct military base there); 

Luftig v. McNamara, 373 F.2d 664, 665–66 (D.C. Cir. 1967) 

(dismissing suit seeking to bar deployment to Vietnam). In 

this case, however, Idris challenges the CIA’s subsequent 

portrayal of him as a terrorist — and there is an equally clear 

line of cases in which we have heard, without constitutional 

qualms, an individual’s statutory challenge to his designation 

as an enemy combatant, thereby supposedly “becoming 

arbiter of the President’s battlefield actions,” Ct. op. at 7. 

See, e.g., Parhat v. Gates, 532 F.3d 834 (2008) (addressing 

statutory claim of wrongful detention, brought under Detainee 

Treatment Act); Chai v. Dep’t of State, 466 F.3d 125 (2006) 

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(addressing statutory claim of wrongful designation as 

terrorist organization, brought under 8 U.S.C. § 1189); Von 

Zedtwitz v. Sutherland, 26 F.2d 525 (1928) (addressing 

statutory claim of wrongful seizure of property, brought under 

Trading with the Enemy Act). The Supreme Court has done 

the same. See Boumediene, 128 S. Ct. 2229. 

The Court finds those cases inapposite because “none ... 

involved a textual commitment of authority to the political 

branches,” Ct. op. at 11; see also id. at 12, but that merely 

restates the Court’s reason for concluding Idris’s claim 

presents a political question. The Court nowhere explains 

why entertaining Idris’s claim would intrude upon the 

President’s exclusive authority as Commander-in-Chief under 

the Constitution any more than would hearing a claim of 

wrongful detention of a person or seizure of property during a 

war. If anything, I would have thought the decision to detain 

a person or to seize property is more closely tied to the 

conduct of war than the decision to label Idris a supporter of 

terrorists. 

 The Court believes Parhat, Chai, and Von Zedtwitz raise 

“an interesting question” it need not answer, namely, where 

lies “the boundary between decisions properly made by the 

judiciary and decisions constitutionally committed to the 

political branches.” Id. at 12. The Court nonetheless 

determines that Idris’s defamation claim lies on the far side of 

that boundary, beyond the reach of judicial review. Although 

the Court may insist Idris’s claim for defamation is “clearly 

outside our authority,” id., it “does nothing more than assert 

that [his] action may affect the foreign relations of the United 

States[;] ... that is surely not enough” to determine whether 

the claim for defamation actually and necessarily raises a 

political question. Simon v. Iraq, 529 F.3d 1187, 1197 (D.C. 

Cir. 2008). 

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* * * 

Whether Idris is entitled to a trial on the merits of his 

claim for defamation is not clear at this stage of the litigation; 

the Government has not even filed its answer. Some of our 

cases do imply a plaintiff may obtain a retraction from the 

United States for defamation by one of its officers, e.g., 

Expeditions Unlimited Aquatic Enters., Inc. v. Smithsonian 

Inst., 566 F.2d 289, 294 n.16 (1977) (en banc) (dictum stating 

that “[u]nder certain circumstances, declaratory and 

injunctive relief may be obtained against defamatory 

statements by government officials”); see also Cmty. for 

Creative Non-Violence v. Pierce, 814 F.2d 663, 671–73 

(1987) (remanding claim of slander brought against federal 

officer under D.C. common law), but there are reasons to 

doubt Idris has a cause of action under the APA. For one, the 

conduct he challenges might be “committed to agency 

discretion by law.” 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2); cf. Saavedra Bruno 

v. Albright, 197 F.3d 1153, 1162 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (holding 

visa determinations are unreviewable under 5 U.S.C. § 

701(a)(1) or § 702(1) and noting that no presumption of 

reviewability applies “[w]hen it comes to matters touching on 

national security or foreign affairs”). I would, however, leave 

it to the district court on remand to address this question in 

the first instance; the district court has not opined upon it and 

the parties have not briefed the question sufficiently in this 

court. 

Nor is it obvious the common law would provide Idris a 

remedy. Federal rather than D.C. common law likely governs 

Idris’s claim because that claim implicates “the rights and 

obligations of the United States,” Texas Indus., Inc. v. 

Radcliff Materials, Inc., 451 U.S. 630, 641 (1981); see also 

Boyle v. United Techs. Corp., 487 U.S. 500 (1988), and under 

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13 

federal common law the United States may be immune from 

liability on the facts here alleged, see Barr v. Matteo, 360 

U.S. 564, 575 (1959) (holding — prior to enactment of 

Westfall Act — executive officers enjoyed absolute immunity 

from liability for damages under common law of defamation 

if they acted within “outer perimeter” of their authority); see 

also Boyle, 487 U.S. 500; see generally ROBERT D. SACK,

SACK ON DEFAMATION § 8.2 (3d ed. 1999). Alternatively, 

Idris’s common law right may have been preempted by a 

statute or statutes that occupy the field. See Pac. Gas & Elec. 

Co. v. State Energy Res. Conservation & Dev. Comm’n, 461 

U.S. 190, 203–04 (1983) (“Absent explicit preemptive 

language, Congress’ intent to supersede state law altogether 

may be found from a scheme of federal regulation ... so 

pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress 

left no room for the States to supplement it, because the Act 

of Congress may touch a field in which the federal interest is 

so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to 

preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject, or 

because the object sought to be obtained by the federal law 

and the character of obligations imposed by it may reveal the 

same purpose” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Hines v. 

Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52 (1941); see also Am. Ins. Ass’n v. 

Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396 (2003); Boyle, 487 U.S. 500. 

* * * 

As pleaded, Idris’s claim does not call upon the district 

court to inquire in any way into the “President’s true 

motivation” for the bombing, nor has the Government shown 

the claim implicates any other military objective. Still, I 

would not hold that the district court must entertain Idris’s 

claim for defamation. I would hold only that, to the extent, if 

any, that Idris has stated a claim upon which relief may be 

granted, nothing in the constitutional allocation of authority 

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14 

between the political and the judicial branches requires that 

the Court dismiss it. 

III. Conclusion 

For the reasons stated in Part I above, and not for the 

reasons given by the Court, I concur in the judgment with 

respect to the plaintiffs’ claim based upon the law of nations. 

For the reasons stated in Part II above, I respectfully dissent 

from the Court’s disposition of Idris’s claim for defamation. 

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