WASHINGTON?Attorney General John Ashcroft named Washington lawyer Kenneth Feinberg on Monday to oversee a government compensation fund for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and their families.

Feinberg, a former assistant to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D Mass., will play a pivotal role in deciding how much money victims’ families will receive and how the compensation fund will work.

The program, established by Congress in September, is to begin Dec. 21 and will dispense money?the amounts have not been determined?to cover lost wages and victims’ pain and suffering.

Ashcroft called the fund “an important step in the effort to provide both fair and prompt relief.”

Under Feinberg, it “will be administered expeditiously and fairly,” Ashcroft said at a Justice Department news conference.