Back when the foreclosure fraud settlement was purportedly only going to cover robo-signing abuses, the price tag was going to be $17 billion.

Now that the Obama Administration is desperately trying to craft a settlement deal to include origination problems, the price tag has grown to $25 billion.

Under the proposed terms of the settlement — which could total $25 billion — banks would get broad legal immunity from state lawsuits in exchange for refinancing underwater loans, those mortgages where borrowers owe more than their homes are worth, the sources said.

The deal could provide some relief to the battered U.S. housing market and clear up some uncertainty about banks’ legal exposure that has been a drag on their shares.

Banks have been holding out on a multi-billion-dollar settlement because they wanted broader legal immunity than state attorneys general were prepared to offer.

Originally, the states were only considering immunity for shortcuts taken during mortgage servicing and foreclosures, including the so-called “robo-signing” of documents to evict people behind on their mortgages.

In recent days, the state attorneys general agreed to release major banks from claims that they made legal errors when first originating the loans, such as approving loans for borrowers without verifying any income, according to two people familiar with the talks.

That means for all the additional things the banks would get immunity for–at the very least, the liars loans and the predatory lending, all the things they’re getting hammered for in reps and warrants suits, though the language might well immunize securitization failures–banks would pay just an additional $8 billion.

That, in spite of the fact that FHFA filed lawsuits against the banks that might be worth $40 billion, with $11.5 billion from Bank of America alone.

So basically Obama wants to fund HAMP 2.0 by letting banks out of at least 80% of what they stand to lose in court.

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At around 9:30 last night, I tweeted something I tweet everytime I watch an episode of the GOP Presidential Candidate Survivor show:

Once again, we’ve gotten to that point of the GOP Debate I hate where Ron Paul starts to sound sane.

Then, about 10 minutes later, Paul said this:

Are you all willing to condemn Ronald Reagan, for exchanging weapons for hostages out of Iran? We all know that was done.

Thunk.

And then Santorum, proving he’s the stupidest of a really dumb presidential field, tried to answer.

Santorum: Iran was a sovereign country, not a terrorist organization, number one.

Paul: Oh they’re our good friends now.

Santorum: They’re not our good friends but they’re a sovereign country. Just like the Palestinian Authority is not the good friends of Israel.

So in one fell swoop, Santorum effectively sanctioned anything Iran did–such as plotting to kill a diplomat in our country–because they’re a sovereign country, misstated that the PA, rather than Hamas, negotiated the prisoner exchange, and suggested that the PA is a sovereign country.

And then Paul went on to note that the detainees at Gitmo are “all suspects, you haven’t convicted them of anything,” to boos from the crowd.

I’ll admit it. Ron Paul was, racism and corporatism notwithstanding, utterly sane in these few minutes. In fact, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a politician lay bare the stupidity of our political class like this.

(FWIW, Newt went on to sheepishly confirm that it was true, to which Paul responded with the most impish grin.)

The stories exposing how Franco’s government and the Catholic Church sold babies has gotten a lot of well-deserved attention.

The scale of the baby trafficking was unknown until this year, when two men – Antonio Barroso and Juan Luis Moreno, childhood friends from a seaside town near Barcelona – discovered that they had been bought from a nun. Their parents weren’t their real parents, and their life had been built on a lie.

Juan Luis Moreno discovered the truth when the man he had been brought to call “father” was on his deathbed.

[snip]

After months of requests from the BBC, the Spanish government finally put forward Angel Nunez from the justice ministry to talk to me about Spain’s stolen children.

Asked if babies were stolen, Mr Nunez replied: “Without a doubt”.

“How many?” I asked.

“I don’t dare to come up with figures,” he answered carefully. “But from the volume of official investigations I dare to say there were many.”

Lawyers believe that up to 300,000 babies were taken.

But this story–detailing how the Argentine Victoria Montenegro was raised by a Colonel who boasted of his heroism torturing and killing subversives, only to find out the man who raised her had tortured and killed her own parents–is equally shocking. But has gotten little attention.

In 1992, when she was 15, Colonel Tetzlaff was detained briefly on suspicion of baby stealing. Five years later, a court informed Ms. Montenegro that she was not the biological child of Colonel Tetzlaff and his wife, she said.

“I was still convinced it was all a lie,” she said.

By 2000, Ms. Montenegro still believed her mission was to keep Colonel Tetzlaff out of prison. But she relented and gave a DNA sample. A judge then delivered jarring news: the test confirmed that she was the biological child of Hilda and Roque Montenegro, who had been active in the resistance. She learned that she and the Montenegros had been kidnapped when she was 13 days old.

At a restaurant over dinner, Colonel Tetzlaff confessed to Ms. Montenegro and her husband: He had headed the operation in which the Montenegros were tortured and killed, and had taken her in May 1976, when she was 4 months old.

The stories, by themselves, are stunning. But they both share the complicit role of the Catholic Church, aiding dictators with a perverse notion of family to fight “subversives.”

Good thing we don’t live in a country where churches try to align with the government to combat “subversives” within the country, huh?

As I noted on Friday, Manssor Arbabsiar’s cousin, Abdul Reza Shahlai, who purportedly directed him to arrange a plot with Los Zetas, was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2008, in part for involvement in an attack in Karbala.

Iran-based Abdul Reza Shahlai–a deputy commander in the IRGC–Qods Force–threatens the peace and stability of Iraq by planning Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) Special Groups attacks against Coalition Forces in Iraq.  Shahlai has also provided material and logistical support to Shia extremist groups–to include JAM Special Groups–that conduct attacks against U.S. and Coalition Forces.  In one instance, Shahlai planned the January 20, 2007 attack by JAM Special Groups against U.S. soldiers stationed at the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, Iraq.  Five U.S. soldiers were killed and three were wounded during the attack.

But as Gareth Porter pointed out yesterday, there are reasons to doubt the US has proof of Shahlai’s role in that attack. Porter’s original report on this from 2007 describes Michael Gordon trying, unsuccessfully, to get Brigidier General Kevin Bergner to provide real evidence of Iranian involvement in the plot. And he describes David Petraeus specifically denying the claim.

Another indication that the command had no evidence of Iranian involvement in the attack was the statements of the top commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, on the issue in an April 26 press briefing. Petraeus had referred to a 22-page memorandum captured with the Shiite prisoners that he said “detailed the planning, preparation, approval process and conduct of the operation that resulted in five of our soldiers being killed in Karbala.” But he did not claim that either the document or the interrogation of Khazali had suggested any Iranian or Hezbollah participation in, much less direction of the planning of the Karbala assault.

Later in that briefing, a reporter asked whether Petraeus was “saying that there was evidence of Iranian involvement in that [Karbala] operation?” Petraeus responded, “No. No. No. That—first of all, that was the operation that you mentioned, and we do not have a direct link to Iranian involvement in that particular case.”

At the time Petraeus made this statement, Khazali, the chief of the militia group that had carried out the attack, had been in U.S. custody for more than a month. Despite nearly five weeks of intensive interrogation of Khazali, Petraeus’s comments would indicate that U.S. officials had not learned anything that implicated Iran or Hezbollah in the planning or execution of the Karbala attack

Porter’s post yesterday describes officers subsequently reiterating that the Iraqis, not the Iranians, launched this plot.

In a news briefing in Baghdad Jul. 2, 2007, Gen. Kevin Bergner confirmed that the attack in Karbala had been authorised by the Iraqi chief of the militia in question, Kais Khazali, not by any Iranian official.

Col. Michael X. Garrett, who had been commander of the U.S. Fourth Brigade combat team in Karbala, confirmed to this writer in December 2008 that the Karbala attack “was definitely an inside job”.

Now, perhaps Treasury had additional evidence by the time it sanctioned Shahlai, perhaps not. But suffice it to say the claim that Shahlai had a role in that plot is at least contested, and there is reason to believe it is outright false.

Which is why I find it so interesting that, among the other things Manssor Arbabsiar repeats to Narc about Shahlai, is that he had ties to a bombing in Iraq.

ARBABSIAR further explained that his cousin was “wanted in America,” had been “on the CNN,” and was a “big general in [the] army.” ARBABSIAR further explained that there were a number of parts to the army of Iran and that his cousin “work[s] in outside, in other countries for the Iranian government[.]” ARBABSIAR further explained that his cousin did not wear a uniform or carry a gun, and had taken certain unspecified actions related to a bombing in Iraq. Compare supra ¶ 17. [my emphasis]

That reference back to paragraph 17? It’s a reference to the complaint’s background on the Quds Force. Note the content carefully:

[T]he IGRC is composed of a number of branches, one of which is the Qods Force. The Qods Force conducts sensitive covert operations abroad, including terrorist attacks, assassinations, and kidnappings, and provides weapons and training to Iran’s terrorist and militant allies. Among many other things, the Qods Force is believed to sponsor attacks against Coalition Forces in Iraq, and in October 2007, the United States Treasury Department designated the Qods Force, pursuant to Executive Order 13224, for providing material support to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations.

Note, the Treasury designation the FBI Agent refers to is not the 2008 designation naming Shahlai directly in connection to the Karbala plot, but instead an earlier one first designating Quds Force for material support to the Taliban. And even though that earlier designation included a laundry list of Quds Force proxies, it includes Iraq almost as a footnote.

IRGC-Qods Force (IRGC-QF): The Qods Force, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; aka Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps), provides material support to the Taliban, Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC).

The Qods Force is the Iranian regime’s primary instrument for providing lethal support to the Taliban. The Qods Force provides weapons and financial support to the Taliban to support anti-U.S. and anti-Coalition activity in Afghanistan. Since at least 2006, Iran has arranged frequent shipments of small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107mm rockets, plastic explosives, and probably man-portable defense systems to the Taliban. This support contravenes Chapter VII UN Security Council obligations. UN Security Council resolution 1267 established sanctions against the Taliban and UN Security Council resolutions 1333 and 1735 imposed arms embargoes against the Taliban. Through Qods Force material support to the Taliban, we believe Iran is seeking to inflict casualties on U.S. and NATO forces.

[snip]

In addition, the Qods Force provides lethal support in the form of weapons, training, funding, and guidance to select groups of Iraqi Shi’a militants who target and kill Coalition and Iraqi forces and innocent Iraqi civilians.

In fact, the complaint rather neatly avoids mentioning those allegations about Karbala at all, in spite of the fact that one of the people discussed (though not by name) in the complaint was specifically sanctioned by Treasury for that. Then, after choosing not to mention the Karbala allegations in the complaint, within hours of its release, the government was anonymously pushing journalists like Mike Isikoff to talk about that later designation. If they had wanted people to look at that later designation, why hadn’t they included it in the complaint?

So to review, the complaint doesn’t point to the Treasury sanction of the guy who purportedly directed this plot. But it does feature the star plotter mentioning the allegation behind that Treasury sanction, presented from the interpretation the US government has spun. And then, within hours of rolling out this show, the government then points journalists to that Shalai-specific Treasury sanction.

Now, Arbasiar’s allusion to what appears to be the Karbala plot is not fatal to this story. It’s possible he really did learn of the Shahlai’s purported role from CNN (I can’t find their report of the 2008 sanction on Google), though that presumably would have been explicit about his role. It’s possible that, in spite the fact that the government doesn’t necessarily have proof on Shahlai, Shahlai was boasting of it to his cousin.

But I find it mighty curious that the only mention of the sanctions on Shahlai–ultimately, our government’s target in the investigation–come from the star plotter and not the FBI itself.

On Saturday, I wrote about a series of Friday drone attacks in southern Yemen.  The most prominent of these attacks killed Ibrahim al-Bana, who is described as the media chief for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.  This same attack, however, also killed Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American cleric targeted and killed last month in Yemen in another US drone attack.

Yesterday, the al-Awlaki family spoke out for the first time since the deaths, granting interviews with the Washington Post.  Notably, it turns out that Adbulrahman was only 16 years old, despite many media reports (including the AP report as carried in the Post that I quoted Saturday) that he was 21.  Here is how Abdulrahman’s grandfather (Anwar’s father) described the killing:

“To kill a teenager is just unbelievable, really, and they claim that he is an al-Qaeda militant. It’s nonsense,” said Nasser al-Awlaki, a former Yemeni agriculture minister who was Anwar al-Awlaki’s father and the boy’s grandfather, speaking in a phone interview from Sanaa on Monday. “They want to justify his killing, that’s all.”

And Abdulrahman wasn’t the only teenager killed in this attack.  His 17 year old Yemeni cousin also died.  In fact, the family claims the attack took place at a nighttime barbecue and several teenagers were killed:

In a separate statement Monday, the Awlaki family said that Abdulrahman “along with some of his tribe’s youth have gone barbecuing under the moonlight. A drone missile hit their congregation killing Abdulrahman and several other teenagers.”

The Post article also has a link to a Facebook page memorializing Abdulrahman.

The family disputes the description the US put out after his death that Anwar al-Awlaki was the head of al-Qaeda external operations:

The family, in its statement, said, “Anwar was never a ‘militant’ ” nor was he “the head of Al Qaeda external operations.”

Abdulrahman became the second American citizen killed in Yemen as “collateral damage” in an attack targeted at someone else, as al Qaeda propagandist Samir Khan was killed in the attack on Anwar al-Awlaki.  However, since virtually all attacks carried out by the US, including the two discussed here,  are initially characterized by US spokespeople as only killing “militants”, a big question becomes whether the intent all along was to kill the two additional Americans, even though there is no indication that either of them had been put on Obama’s “hit list”.

There are several key questions in the case of Abdulrahman.  Did the US know he was only 16?  Did the US know there were additional teenagers at the cookout?  Was there a conscious decision to kill Abdulrahman under the belief that he was a militant?

New technology that is in development has the potential to reduce the number of collateral damage deaths, if there is indeed a desire to reduce them.  AFP reported yesterday on the development of “kamikaze drones”:

A miniature “kamikaze” drone designed to quietly hover in the sky before dive-bombing and slamming into a human target will soon be part of the US Army’s arsenal, officials say.

The article notes the issues that have developed in Pakistan with the killing of innocent civilians in drone strikes that employ the larger Hellfire missiles and points out how the new drones are intended to improve that situation:

The Switchblade, however, is touted as a way to avoid killing bystanders.

“Flying quietly at high speed the Switchblade delivers its onboard explosive payload with precision while minimizing collateral damage,” the company said.

The US has a $4.9 million contract with the developer, AeroVironment, to supply the new drones “as soon as possible”.  It will be interesting to see just how popular the new drones become with their CIA and JSOC operators.  Will there be an effort to hit individuals with Switchblades when they are isolated and perhaps even in the open, or will the lure of killing a larger number of “militants” at one time (with attendant collateral damage likely) maintain the current status quo of most drone attacks hitting small gatherings?

As I’ve mused on twitter and in comment threads, I’ve started wondering who paid more for Scary Iran Plot, the US Government or (allegedly) Quds Force?

After all, it’s clear that Narc offered up the idea to attack Adel al-Jubeir at a restaurant with explosives rather than, say, shooting him or poisoning him. Narc invented the fictional 150 civilians who would be at the restaurant. Narc invented the fictional Senators who might be killed in the blast. Narc said he could, “blow him up or shoot him,” and Arbabsiar said, “how is possible for you.” When Narc warned about those fictional casualties, Arbabsiar said, “if you can do it outside, do it” (though he clearly okayed collateral damage if necessary). Thus, even assuming there is nothing else funny about the plot, it’s clear that Narc authored the most spectacular details of it, the ones that resulted in a terrorism and WMD charges rather than just murder-for-hire, and quite possibly the ones that made this an alleged act of war against the US, rather than just an attack on Saudi Arabia.

Even assuming the Iranians dreamt up this plot, the US wrote the screenplay for it.

So how much did each side pay to create this plot?

I’d put the Quds force tab at $175,000. They allegedly advanced $100,000 for some kind of plot–but refused to send any more money. And on July 17, Arbabsiar describes asking Shahlai for “another $15.” Given that that happened in month 6 of a 9 month plot, I think it fair to estimate he was paid three installments of $15,000, or $45,000. Add in $30,000 for Shukari’s time, and you’ve got $175,000. (It’s not clear whether Arbabsiar paid for his international flights out of his advance, but I’ll also leave out the much greater travel costs on the American side. Further, all this assumes we haven’t paid in the past or agreed to pay Arbabsiar in the future for his part in the plot.)

The government, for its part, paid Narc to work Arbabsiar for at least four months. They paid Craig Monteilh $11,800 a month to run around safe mosques to try to entrap aspirational terrorists in LA; I presume they’d pay more for an actual cartel member to risk his life as an informant in Mexico. But let’s assume they paid the same rate they paid Monteilh, which would work out to $47,200, remarkably, about what Quds Force allegedly seems to have paid Arbabsiar. In addition, we’ve got at least the time of Robert Woloszyn, the FBI Agent who wrote the complaint. He doesn’t seem to have been Narc’s handler, so you’ve got Narc’s handler working long hours. In the press conference rolling out this case, Preet Bharara said two prosecutors, their two supervisors, the Deputy US Attorney, and the Acting Criminal head in NY “have [not] gotten much sleep lately.” In addition to SDNY, there was involvement from the Houston US Attorney and FBI offices, Houston DEA (which may be where Narc’s handler worked), NY’s JTTF. And all those intelligence personnel who played a critical role that we can’t discuss (except in anonymous leaks to journalists). Now clearly, many of these people were probably not personally involved in the crafting of a story that took alleged Quds Force intent to attack Saudi Arabia and turned it into the spectacular attack on a fictional restaurant in DC. But it’s probably safe to say that the US Government paid as much to craft this plot as the Quds Force allegedly did, even before you account for the money spent surveilling Arbabsiar, Shahlai, and Shakuri before the plot as well as the money spent stopping it.

With that in mind, check out the language State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland uses to describe how other countries are receiving the State Department’s efforts to persuade them to treat this plot as real.

Other countries are buying the basic idea of the plot, Nuland said, despite fairly widespread skepticism among Iran watchers about the likelihood the Quds Force would put such a clumsy plan into place.

“Countries may find it quite a story, but they’re not surprised that Iran would be capable of something like this,” she said.

It seems that our allies may be just as skeptical as many American observers that the Quds Force planned the precise plot that–it is clear–Narc’s handlers wrote the screenplay for. But, Nuland says, they buy the basic idea of it–“they’re not surprised that Iran would be capable of something like this.”

We had to invent this entire screenplay–perhaps investing as much money or more as Quds Force allegedly did–to get our allies to agree that the Quds Force might engage in terrorism? Didn’t they already know that?

(I sort of wonder whether our representatives are also asking our allies whether they think we’re capable of assassinating nuclear scientists?)

Therein lies the problem with the American practice of using stings to craft the scariest terror story possible. If the sheer improbability of it makes the story less credible, if all it does is reinforce a widely held belief, then doesn’t the theatricality of it work against the government?

Several days ago, I finished listening to Joby Warrick’s The Triple Agent. It’s quite good, both in terms of readability and news value. But since I have the Audible, not the dead tree, version I wasn’t able to transcribe what I found to be one of the most interesting passages in it.

Luckily, that incident is precisely what he told Tom Ricks he wished people had noticed, so now Ricks has basically transcribed it for me!

BD: What is the one question you’d like to answer about the book that nobody has asked you?

JW: Some of the events in the book have never been described elsewhere, and I’ve been surprised that few reviewers or interviewers have asked about them. One favorite: a description in the book of a dirty-bomb threat that emanated from Pakistan mid-2009 and raised alarms at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Information gleaned through SIGINT intercepts suggested strongly that the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) had acquired “nuclear” material-presumably radioactive sources useable in a dirty bomb–and were trying to decide what to do with it. Concerns over a possible dirty-bomb attack directly factored into the decision to take out TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a drone strike on Aug. 5 of that year. No radioactive material was subsequently found, and to this day, no one knows what happened to it, or indeed, whether it ever existed.

As Warrick revealed, the reason we were so intent on taking out Mehsud is because of intelligence that he might have the radioactive material for a dirty bomb (IIRC, the CIA was responding to SIGINT they deemed to be code). As tends to happen when we use uranium to justify war, no nukes were found.

A pity for Mehsud’s young wife, who also died in that attack (Warrick describes how they died on their rooftop in some detail).

I raise this not just to recommend Warrick’s book. But to remind you how our government decided to claim the retaliation for this drone strike by Mehsud’s brother was a crime, presumably because the escalating series of revenge ended in Humam al-Bawali’s Khost attack.

But the mention of CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan raises a bunch more problems with DOJ’s charges. For starters, Mehsud’s wife–a civilian–was reportedly killed in that January drone strike too. Both the uncertainty the CIA has about its purportedly scalpel-like use of drones and the civilian deaths they’ve caused illustrate the problem with drones in the first place. Civilians–CIA officers–are using them in circumstances with significant collateral damage. It would be generous to call the use of drones in such situations an act of war; some legal experts have said the CIA officers targeting the drones are as much illegal combatants as al Qaeda fighters themselves.

The affidavit describing the evidence to charge Mehsud doesn’t say it, but underlying his alleged crime is the potential US crime of having civilians target non-combatants in situations that cannot be described as imminently defensive.

Charging someone for revenge on CIA’s illegal killing

Which leads us to the crimes for which they’re charging Mehsud: conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to use a WMD (bombs) against a US national while outside of the United States. Basically, DOJ is charging Mehsud with conspiring with Humam Khalil Mulal al-Balawi, the Jordanian doctor who committed the suicide bombing at Khost that killed 7 CIA officers and contractors.

Now, there’s not much doubt that Mehsud did conspire with al-Balawi. I just doubt whether it could be fairly called a crime. The affidavit describes two videos in which Mehsud stands side by side with al-Bawali. In one, both al-Balawi and Mehsud describe the upcoming attack as revenge for killings in the drone program–most importantly, of Mehsud’s brother Baitullah Mehsud from a CIA drone strike in August 2009.

Al-Balawi then continues alone: “This itishhadi [martyrdom-seeking attack] will be the first of the revenge against the Americans.” After additional declarations of revenge by al-Balawi, MEHSUD resumes speaking in Pashtu, explaining the motive for the upcoming suicide attack by al-Balawi, that is the death of the former emir of the TTP, Baitullah Meshud [sic] which MESHUD [sic] attributes to the Americans.

Remember, too, that al-Balawi was a double agent. The Americans believed he was helping them target people, people just like Mehsud. That means al-Balawi (and presumably through him, Mehsud) knew he was specifically targeting those behind the earlier killings in Pakistan when he killed them.

So al-Balawi successfully killed people who were either civilians, in which case their own strikes at Baitullah Mehsud and others may be illegal, or people who were acting as soldiers, in which case the attack on their base was presumably legal under the law of war. And for helping al-Balawi, DOJ is now charging Mehsud with conspiracy.

The affidavit, of course, neglects to mention any of these details.

Let me be clear: the Administration’s stupid attempt to apply this double standard doesn’t make the Khost bombing any less tragic. But it did strike me as a pathetic attempt to cloak a disastrous blood feud, for all sides, in legal niceties to somehow make it seem like something else.

But I find it all the more ironic that the whole blood feud was triggered with yet another nuke claim that may have been wrong.

A number of people–from MadDog to the Administration–have claimed that the money trail in the Scary Iran Plot is what makes it credible.

I’d like to lay out what the Administration showed in the complaint–as opposed to in its predictable trail of anonymous leaks that the Administration apparently believes can replace actual evidence–regarding the money trail. I actually find their anonymous claims that the money trail shows more damning details to be more believable than some of the other things they’ve said about this. But the most solid evidence described in the complaint–as I described here–shows money being delivered with no explanation into the hands of a person, Individual #1, and from there being sent to the US. Yet Individual #1 doesn’t even appear to be Quds Force and was neither charged in the complaint nor sanctioned by Treasury.

Money was exchanged, but for what?

Before I lay out what the money details show, though, let’s lay out the many possible operations the money paid for. According to Manssor Arbabsiar’s confession, his cousin Abdul Reza Shahlai told him to go get drug traffickers to kidnap the Saudi Ambassador. Arbabsiar’s confession says it evolved into a capture or kill deal (though says it did so in conversations with Gholam Shakuri and Hamed Abdollahi, not Shahlai). The complaint also mentions plans of “attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia” (Narc’s account of the May 24 meeting with Arbabsiar), for “a number of violent missions” (Narc’s account of purportedly unrecorded June-July meetings), “the murder of the Ambassador” (Narc’s account of purportedly unrecorded June-July meetings), and targeting foreign government facilities located outside of the United States, associated with Saudi Arabia and with another country [reported to be Israel]” (footnote 6 describing what Narc reported from these earlier meetings). The quotes from July 14 are ambiguous whether they refer to kidnapping or assassination of al-Jubeir. The quotes from July 17 include clear reference to killing what is presumably (thought not specified as) al-Jubeir. And note what the complaint rather damningly doesn’t mention, though Administration leakers admit?

The plotters also discussed a side deal between the Quds Force, part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and Los Zetas to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East to Mexico, the official said.

In other words, several things were being negotiated: the kidnapping and/or assassination of al-Jubeir, hits on embassies in Argentina, possibly some other horrible things, and drug deals. So we need to be careful to tie any payments to specific ops.

The use of two different codes in the taped conversations doesn’t make tying payments to specific ops any easier–the complaint mentions “painting,” or “doing” a building (September 2, 20, and October 4), which the FBI Agent interprets without stated confirmation in Arbabsiar’s confession as the murder, as well as the “Chevrolet” (October 5 and 7), which Arbabsiar’s confession says also referred to the murder (syntactically, though, the Chevrolet sounds like a drug deal, while the building seems more closely connected to the murder).

Finally, a conversation on September 12 seems to suggest (though the FBI Agent doesn’t interpret it this way) that Arbabsiar had presented Narc several choices of operations, and the plotters just wanted them to pick one to carry out. After insisting the price would be “one point five,” Arbabsiar told Narc, for example, that he could “prepare for those too [two] … but we need at least one of them” [ellipsis original]. He went on to say that if Narc did “at least one … I’ll send the balance for you” [ellipsis original]. Particularly given the two different codes–building and Chevrolet–it seems possible there were still at least two different operations (both Arbabsiar and Shakuri offer up the building, not the Chevrolet, when they are not being coached as the operation they’re most anxious about). At the very least, this means that two months after the two meetings supposedly finalizing the plan for the assassination, both the price and the objective remained unclear.

No quoted passage ties the $100,000, the $1.5 million, and the assassination

Those two meetings–which do tie money to an attack on the Saudis–took place on July 14 and July 17. Before those meetings even started, however, the $100,000 that was purportedly the down-payment for the al-Jubeir assassination had already been transferred to a middleman; Arbabsiar tells Narc that Individual #1 (who is not described in the same way the Quds officers are, and appears not to have been sanctioned with everyone else) got the “money at nine in the morning.” The quoted passages definitely tie what appears to be the $1.5 million to doing something with Saudi Arabia. “Take the one point five for the Saudi Arabia.” That might be doing something with the Saudi embassy, though later in the same conversation Arbabsiar does confirm Narc’s question that “you just want the main guy.” Given the number of plots they were discussing, that’s not definitive that the $100,000 was tied to the al-Jubeir plot at all, nor is it definitive that the “one point five” was the agreed upon payment for assassinating–as opposed to kidnapping–al-Jubeir. There is no quote that ties all these things together; but assuming the FBI Agent’s interpretation is not really wacko, it does seem this conversation ties the money to some kind of attack on al-Jubeir.

The July 17 conversation–which with the July 14 conversation, includes one of two discussions of bank account numbers for the transfer–makes the focus on assassination much more clear. Narc pretends his guys are in Washington (meaning there’s no doubt the attack in discussion was al-Jubeir rather than the Saudi Embasy in Argentina). And–in the sole quotations in the entire complaint that make it clear Arbabsiar was talking about assassination–in response to Narc’s cue, “I don’t know what exactly your cousin wants me to do,” Arbabsiar says his cousin “wants you to kill this guy” and goes on to say that if necessary, collateral damage of citizens is acceptable.

Consider how laughable this deal-making is. On July 14, Narc gives his price for the job. Then on July 17, he’s still looking for clarification about what the task really is! Nevertheless, the FBI seems to use the July 14 quotation as the definitive proof that a deal was done. I assume if Arbabsiar were really talking to Los Zetas, such sloppy deal-making would have already gotten him shot.

The whole connection between the money and the assassination here would be a lot stronger if the actual deal-making were shown, if the complaint explained how Arbabsiar came to ask for the $100,000 in the first place, particularly given that the conversations at least appear to show that the final deal and even the ultimate target seem to have been decided after the down payment got sent to Individual #1 (and I’ll suggest the later money issues may derive from lack of clarity even among the parties). That said, these two conversations–if the conversation had indeed come to focus just on the assassination, though we don’t know that it had–do seem to have tied the money to that killing.

The person who forwarded the money appears to be neither Quds Force nor sanctioned

Then there’s the question of whether Quds fronted the money. The complaint goes to some length to describe that Shahlai and Shuktari were paying Arbabsiar’s expenses, but given the general range of deals that got discussed and given that this whole process purportedly started in February, three months before the first conversation with Narc, I’m not sure that is a definitive tie to an assassination (particularly not the earlier chunk of money from Shahlai). And even the quote from the July 17 meeting describing Arbabsiar asking Shahlai for more money–which the FBI agent claims was tied to the assassination–includes no identification of it as tied to the assassination attempt.

I tell [Shahlai], give me just another fifteen. Just … next morning they send one guy, you know, that work for [Shahlai]. He’s like a colonel, the guy.

In fact, the passage doesn’t even include a description of when Arbabsiar asked for and got this money, which is pretty telling given that Narc was still trying to clarify what was the intended operation on that day.

The description of the $100,000 is more specific. The complaint describes the original transfer to Individual #1 (who as I noted above, is not described the same as the Quds Force figures and was not sanctioned by Treasury with the others) this way:

ARBABSIAR stated that the “money is [in] Iran,” and that he [ARBABSIAR] had received a call indicating the money would be at the house of a certain individual [“Individual #1”]. When Arbabsiar called Individual #1, “he [Individual #1] said he had it there” and that he [Individual #1] had received “the money at nine in the morning.”

The quoted passages go on to describe what almost certainly constitutes a clear intent to launder the money (though it’s not clear those methods were used in the actual money transfer, which seems to have been accomplished in two $49,960 chunks).

Not only does this passage not tie the $100,000 to QF, but even the person who called Arbabsiar to tell him Individual #1 would get the money was not described at all, and not in any way to tie him or her to QF. The complaint also doesn’t say the the two different “Foreign Entities” from which the money was transferred have any tie to QF. Likewise, in the quoted discussions of Arbabsiar making sure Narc received the money, there’s no indication of a tie to QF, to the assassination, or even to Shakuri. And even the complaint’s description of Arbabsiar’s confession (which does confirm these things) does not identify who approved the $100,000, instead using the passive voice: “A down-payment of $100,000 to [Narc] for the murder of the Ambassador was approved.”

Passages showing Shakuri aware of down payment don’t make sense

Now, in two of the three calls recorded while Arbabsiar was in custody, Shakuri seems aware that money has passed hands. But the tie of it to any murder relies on the syntactically odd treatment of Chevrolet as code for the murder. More importantly, the references are just bizarre (and since these are translations from Farsi, the confusion shouldn’t derive from the speakers using a second language–English–as is possible in conversations between Narc and Arbabsiar).

Arbabsiar: This boy wants, uh, some money, he wants some expenditure. What do you say, should we give him some more? He wants another 50.

Shakuri: With you, no, you … that amount is fine, [unintelligible] brought me another car. Tell him to finish his work, then we’ll give him the rest.

[snip]

Arbabsiar: …this Mexican … keeps on insisting on the thing. He says, ‘If–I need money, 50. I won’t do the job if you don’t pay.’ And everything’s ready.

Shakuri: Okay.

Arbabsiar: What do you say now?

Shakuri: I don’t know. You guaranteed this yourself … of course, if we give it, we’ll give it to you. Okay? If he gives it, fine; if not we must provide the 100 [or] 50. Tell him [unintelligible] [emphasis mine, ellipses original]

Shakuri at first seems to approve another $50,000, then seems to suggest they’ve already taken delivery of a different car–for whatever car means (Arbabsiar said it was code for the assassination, but given that there have been no known assassinations [update: this one, which the Saudis blame on QF, would be too early], this passage seems to raise questions about that). The next passage is even weirder: at first Shakuri suggests that if they were to give more money, they’d give it to Arbabsiar, not Narc. How would that help things? Then Shakuri suggests that if Narc doesn’t “give it,” which contextually should mean if Narc doesn’t kill the Ambassador, then “we must provide provide the 100 or 50.”

Now, in all the conversations where Arbabsiar (surely at the instruction of the FBI) is trying to get Shakuri to agree to more money, he only says Narc wanted another $50,000. So in spite of the fact that one explanation for this is Shakuri saying that if Narc held out, they might have to meet his demand, it doesn’t explain why he’d have to pay Narc twice what he was demanding (unless Arbabsiar was being paid at a 100% cut on any job).

Another possibility is they’ve promised someone else to do the job or borrowed the money from someone. In which case, in response to a request for more money purportedly as a further down payment, Shakuri would be talking about paying some fourth party. In short, while Shakuri does seem to know some amount of money was forwarded, his discussion of it makes it sound less clear that QF provided the funding and that it was for the assassination, as opposed to one of the other deals being negotiated.

Is QF getting money from Iran … or giving it to another government?

There’s a similarly odd passage in the quotations purportedly showing that Shahlai was being funded for this by Iran.

[Arbabsiar] this is politics, ok … it’s not like, eh, personal … This is politics, so these people they pay this government … [Shahlai’s] got the, got the government behind him … he’s not paying from his pocket. [ellipses original]

Now this passage, unlike the last two (which are translations from Farsi), might best be explained by Arbabsiar’s less than perfect English. With that caveat, though, the bolded passage appears to suggest not that Iran was paying QF, but that QF was paying some other government (or someone else was paying Iran). QF is, as I understand it, the part of the Iranian government that bribes people like Hamid Karzai and the Taliban and presumably Shiite factions in Iraq. So while I consider this passage to be as unclear as the Shakuri passages, it at least provides a hint that some third entity sponsored whatever happened here (and given the possibility this includes an opium deal, Afghans are a possible explanation).

Why was the FBI so intent on getting additional money transferred?

Finally, I’ll leave you with this question. After the initial $100,000 was transferred on August 1 and 9, Narc is described as making at least three requests that more money get sent: on September 20, October 5, and October 7 (plus a conversation on August 28 where providing a guarantee first came up, and a conversation on September 12 where Arbabsiar insists the number would remain the same).

The FBI went to great lengths–but failed–to get the plotters to send more money.

If the one transfer, the $100,000, was such solid evidence, then why were they trying so hard to get another transfer?

On Saturday, the Journal of Bioterrorism & Biodefense published an article (pdf) by Hugh-Jones, Rosenberg and Jacobsen that provides the details of their theory, first described in a McClatchy article, that the anthrax spores employed in the 2001 anthrax attacks were “weaponized” by a process that involved tin-catalyzed polymerization of silicon monomers.  Wasting no time, David Willman was quickly trotted out in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday to tut-tut this latest information as arising from “critics” of the FBI and to provide an outlet for those who unquestioningly parrot the FBI’s conclusion from its Amerithrax investigation that Bruce Ivins acted alone in carrying out the attacks.

Shortly after the McClatchy article was published, I provided this perspective on the new revelations it contained:

The presence of silicon and how it may have gotten into the anthrax material has been a point of great controversy throughout the entire investigation. This question is important because the chemical nature of the silicon and the level at which it is present is presumed to be an indicator of whether the anthrax spores have been “weaponized” to make them suspend more readily in air so that they are more effective in getting into the small passageways of the lungs of the intended targets of the attack. Early in the investigation, Brian Ross published “leaked” information that the spores had been weaponized through addition of bentonite and that Iraq had a weaponization program that used bentonite. This report turned out to be false, as no evidence for bentonite has been found. A more sophisticated type of weaponizing would rely on mixing the spores with nanoparticles of silica (silica is the common name for the compound silicon dioxide) to make them disperse more easily.

The FBI carried out a special form electron microscopy that could identify the location of the silicon in the spores from the attack material. They found that the silicon was in a structure called the the spore coat, which is inside the most outer covering of the spore called the exosporium. If silica nanoparticles had been used to disperse the spores, these would have been found on the outside of the exosporuim (see this diary for a discussion of this point and quotes from the scientific literature) because they are too large to penetrate it.  No silicon signature was seen on the outside edge of the exosporium.  What is significant about the type of silicon treatment suggested in the McClatchy piece is that both high silicon and high tin measurements were found in several samples and that there is an alternative silicon treatment that would involve a tin-catalyzed polymerization of silicon-containing precursor molecules. McClatchy interviewed scientists who work with this process and they confirmed that the ratio of silicon to tin found by the FBI is in the range one would expect if such a polymerization process had been used.

What McClatchy doesn’t mention in their report is that it would seem for a polymerization process of this sort, the silicon-containing precursor molecules would be small enough to penetrate the exosporium before being polymerized, or linked together into much larger molecules, once they reached the spore coat. This would mimic the location of silicon incorporated “naturally” into spores.

As the photo above shows, the anthrax spores in the attack material had silicon that was found exclusively in the spore coat and not in the exosporium.  This photo is taken from a news article (subscription required) published in March, 2010 in Science magazine.  I quoted the article in this diary from the same day:

A more detailed analysis by Joseph Michael and Paul Kotula of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contradicted that conclusion. Studying individual spores with a transmission electron microscope, they found that the silicon was located within the spore coat, well inside the cell’s exosporium (outermost covering). By contrast, when they looked at surrogate spores weaponized with silica, the silicon was clearly outside the exosporium.

But the Sandia study, presented last September to a National Academies panel reviewing the science behind the investigation, still leaves questions. Out of 124 spores from a letter mailed to Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Michael found the silicon-and oxygen signature in 97—78% of the sample. The signature was present in 66% of a sample from a letter to former Senator Tom Daschle and in 65% of spores from a letter sent to theNew York Post.

Out of nearly 200 other anthrax samples from different labs, none came close to displaying such a prominent silicon signature. The highest, in a sample from Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, was 29%. The researchers couldn’t find silicon in the coat of a single spore out of some 300 taken from RMR-1029, the flask in Ivins’s lab identified as the source of the bacteria used in the attacks; they concluded that all the silicon had come from the culture.

Note that the Sandia study found that the attack material had silicon present in the spore coats of a higher percentage of the spores than in any samples they analyzed where silicon had been incorporated into the spore coat during culture.  Note also that the only “weaponization” treatment employed in the Sandia study was the treatment of spores with silica nanoparticles which coated the exosporium rather than the spore coat.

As I had suggested after first reading the McClatchy article, the Hugh-Jones et. al. article [full citation: Hugh-Jones ME, Rosenberg BH, Jacobsen S (2011) The 2001 Attack Anthrax: Key Questions, Potential Answers. J Bioterr Biodef S3:001. doi:10.4172/2157-2526.S3-001] describes in detail the chemistry of how the silicon monomers could penetrate the exosporium prior to polymerizing on the surface of the spore coat:

All the evidence in the public domain is consistent with the concept that the spore coats of the attack anthrax were silicone-coated. Silicone polymers are typically formed by hydrolysis of a silicon compound such as dimethyldichlorosilane (or other silanes with similar substituents), which contains no oxygen. Hydrolysis replaces the chlorine atoms with oxygen to form dimethylsilanol, which polymerizes spontaneously to form polydimethylsiloxane, containing silicon and oxygen in equal amounts. The polydimethylsiloxane chains can then be cross-linked (“cured”) to form a three-dimensional silicone coating for encapsulation. This step requires an organotin catalyst such as a dibutyltin dicarboxylate.

A procedure of this kind can be envisioned for encapsulating B. anthracis spores. Silane monomers like dimethyldichlorosilane are low-molecular-weight liquids that probably can penetrate the exosporium, the loose-fitting membrane sac that encloses the spore. If silane monomers were added to a suspension of dry spores in an organic solvent, the silane would not contact moisture until it reached the spore coat, where residual moisture diffusing from the core inside the spore would cause hydrolysis, followed by polymerization at the spore coat. The polysiloxane chains that would be formed at the spore coat could then be cross-linked to encapsulate the spore. This step would require continued diffusion of moisture from inside the spore, as well as an organotin catalyst. Organotins have low solubility in water but, like silanes, are soluble in organic solvents such as ether, carbon tetrachloride, etc. The ratio of tin to silicon in the attack spores is “about right” for a tin catalyst used to produce a silicone coating,
according to a chemist in the field.

As stated previously in the McClatchy article, Hugh-Jones, et. al. point out that it would not have been possible to treat anthrax spores with this process at USAMRIID, where Ivins carried out all of his work:

It would be difficult not to conclude that the spores in the attack letters were prepared for some purpose other than terrorism. Potential procedures that might be applicable for silicone coating of spores, barely touched on here, are complex, highly esoteric processes that could not possibly have been carried out by a single individual. They would require a laboratory with specialized capabilities and expertise not found at USAMRIID, in addition to the possession of the correct strains of B. anthracis Ames associated with flask RMR 1029.

Personnel at USAMRIID all agree that no work with non-aqueous (dry or suspended in organic solvents) anthrax spore preparations is carried out there. The technological ramifications of this are that had Ivins engaged in such work, he would have encountered barriers. His need to decontaminate areas where he worked with dry spore powder would have been greater than areas where he worked with suspensions of spores in water since dry powder would be more likely to disperse over larger portions of the work area. Furthermore, there is no indication that the hot suite where Ivins worked with spores is equipped to handle organic solvents. Safe removal of volatile solvent fumes [ether fumes are responsible for the explosions and fires frequent in amateur meth labs] while still preventing release of spores would require additional air-handling technology that there would have been no reason to have at the USAMRIID hot suites if only water suspensions of spores would be present. Furthermore, the actual polymerization and curing process would be likely to generate organotin vapors that can be quite toxic if not vented properly.

In response to this publication of the details of how anthrax spores could come to have the silicon and tin content observed, even including the observed location of the silicon in the attack material, David Willman attacked this information in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. Here is how Willman describes various recent questions that have been raised about the FBI’s data and conclusions:

One account came from three scientists — long critical of the FBI — whose questions were the subject of a story in the New York Times. Another came from the nonprofit group ProPublica,  the PBSdocumentary unit Frontline and McClatchy Newspapers. The coverage highlighted the lingering antagonism toward the FBI among some of Ivins’ colleagues at the Army‘s biowarfare research center at Ft. Detrick, Md.

In response to the reports, FBI spokesman Michael Kortan said the bureau stood by its conclusion that Ivins was the perpetrator, “based both on the scientific findings and the results of the extensive traditional criminal investigation.”

Note that Hugh-Jones, et. al. are described as “long critical of the FBI” and that USAMRIID personnel who disagree with the FBI  are painted as having “lingering antagonism toward the FBI”.  Willman then trots out an FBI spokesman to assure us that the FBI has no doubts about its work or conclusions.

Willman goes to special pains to address the silicon-tin story.  After again calling Hugh-Jones, Rosenberg and Jacobsen “longtime critics of the FBI” lest we forget that phrase, Willman goes on to try to impeach Rosenberg by pointing out that she was an early advocate of the theory that Steven Hatfill had been behind the attacks.  But Willman’s attempt to negate the silicon-tin polymerization theory falls far short of the science:

Joseph R. Michael, the investigation’s top scientist in charge of determining whether the mailed anthrax was treated with additives, acknowledged that it may never be established how tin or another common element, silicon, got into some of the spores. But Michael said that if tin or silicon had been intentionally added, it probably would have coated the exterior surfaces. He said he found trace levels of tin and silicon only inside the spores.

This is the same Joseph Michael of Sandia National Laboratories who produced the image at the top of this post.  Recall that in those experiments carried out for the FBI, Michael and his colleagues found that silica nanoparticles added to spores after they were dried resulted in the silicon signature showing up on the exosporium, rather than on the spore coat, as found in the attack material.  Michael’s work was carried out before the tin-catalyzed silicon polymerization theory was advanced.  In his quote to Willman, it’s not clear whether Michael has not read the Hugh-Jones et. al. paper and its explanation of how the silicon monomers would be expected to penetrate the exosporium before polymerizing at the spore coat or if he is just choosing to claim that such a treatment would be unlikely, so that it would be probable that exogenously added silicon or tin would be found on the exosporium.  At any rate, Willman’s quote makes Michael appear entirely unable to consider theories that conflict with his experiment that included only one among the countless number of techniques that could have been employed to introduce the silicon and tin to the attack spores.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger;

I want to return to something Manssor Arbabsiar’s attorney, Sabrina Shroff, said the other day. “If he is indicted, he will plead not guilty.”

I’ve suggested Shroff may have reason to believe Arbabsiar will get a plea deal before this ever goes to the grand jury. Which would mean no one would ever challenge the government on the many holes in this case [oh hey! that’s me at Atlantic.com]: the claimed lack of taped conversations, the explanation why Arbabsiar cooperated, some holes in the government’s money trail (at least as it appears in the complaint), the remarkable coinkydink Arbabsiar just happened to ask a DEA informant to help him kidnap the Saudi Ambassador, and some perhaps incorrect interpretations of existing tape transcripts.

It would be very convenient for the government if this never went to trial.

But think, for a moment, about the government’s actions in this affair. It rolled out a splashy press conference. Joe Biden has declared no options off the table; Susan Rice is “unit[ing] world opinion” against Iran. And if that doesn’t work, Hillary Clinton will make personal calls followed by onsite teams to persuade allies that this whole plot isn’t a bunch of bupkis.

We have rolled out a giant campaign to use this plot to do … something … with Iran.

But it has yet to pass the ham sandwich test.

Our government has had eleven business days now to subject its amended case to the scrutiny of a grand jury, it had two and a half months to subject its original case to the scrutiny of a grand jury, and it hasn’t yet bothered to do so. We’re sharing our case with the rest of the world before we’re subjecting it to the most basic level of oversight enshrined in our Constitution. Instead of using the legal process laid out in our founding document, we’ve gotten the signature of a Magistrate Judge and run off with it to the rest of the world. And while I have no doubt of the competence of Magistrate Judge Michael Dolinger, the judge who signed the complaint in this case, that’s simply not the way our judicial system is supposed to work. Average citizens are supposed to review the work of the government when it makes legal cases, not just Magistrates.

All of which ought to raise real questions why our government has decided to share these details with the rest of the world, but bypassed the step where they’re supposed to share them with its own citizens.