A stinging report by a British House of Commons committee concluding that Rupert Murdoch is “not fit” to run a major international company provides powerful new ammunition for shareholders suing  News Corp. in the United States and for big institutional investors demanding changes in the media giant’s management, analysts say.

It also comes at a perilous time for the U.S.-based company. Law enforcement sources have confirmed to NBC News that the U.S. Justice Department is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into Murdoch’s media empire, looking into allegations of bribes paid to officials in Russia and China as well as Scotland Yard police officers in the United Kingdom.  

“I think there will be a shareholder revolt over this,” said Julie Tanner, an assistant director of Christian Brothers Investment Service, an investment advisory firm for Catholic Church institutions, referring to the report by the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Christian Brothers has filed a shareholder resolution calling on News Corp. to shake up its management and appoint a new independent chairman. 

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Other big investors, including the California state retirement fund CalPERS and a consortium of British pension funds, have signaled their support for these efforts. 

“Our principal concern at News Corp. has been to ensure that it has robust governance policies and practices in place, and that effective action is taken to root out wrongdoing,”  Tom Powdrill, chief of communications for the Local Authority  Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), the British pension fund consortium, said in an email to NBC News on Tuesday. “Clearly, today’s report reflects the fact that News Corp. has been deficient on both counts in the past.”

Murdoch not 'a fit person' to lead major firm, UK lawmakers say

As chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp, the 81-year-old Murdoch is among the highest-paid executives in the world, receiving total compensation of $33.3 million last year, including a $12.5 million bonus. He has successfully beaten back similar resolutions in past years, thanks in part to his and his family’s ownership of 40 percent of the voting stock of the media giant. (He also benefited from the solid support of Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the Riyadh based media tycoon who owns an estimated 7 percent of News Corp. The prince did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. )

But the blistering report by the House of Commons committee could change the equation and potentially spur the board’s directors -- including such prominent figures as Joel Klein, the former chancellor of the New York City Schools -- to demonstrate their independence by distancing themselves from Murdoch, some analysts say.

“The biggest impact of the report is going to be on the shareholder resolutions and it could threaten the Murdoch family control of the company,” said Andrew Schwartzman,  a Washington, D.C.,-based media lawyer and the longtime policy director for The Media Access Project, a public interest group that has sought to curb the power of big media firms. 

But Murdoch has shown no inclination to step down as head of News Corp. — a company whose diverse interests in the United States include the Wall Street Journal, the Fox cable network and the 20^th Century Fox movie studio.

In a memo to News Corp. employees Tuesday afternoon, Murdoch acknowledged what he described as “past mistakes” over the phone hacking allegations and promised “a more robust global compliance structure” around the world.

“To that end, News Corporation continues to cooperate with all inquiries relating to voice mail interception and improper payments to public officials,” Murdoch wrote in the memo, an apparent reference to the Justice Department investigations into potential violations of U.S. anti-bribery law.

At the same time, Murdoch insisted, “Our business has never been stronger.” And, in a separate statement, the company criticized the inclusion of passages in the report -- clearly the ones referring to Murdoch -- as “unjustified and highly partisan.” (The personal criticism of Murdoch -- including language that he “turned a blind eye” to allegations of widespread phone hacking and gave testimony that was “barely credible”-- was adopted by six of the committees 11 members. Voting for the harsh language were five members of the Labor Party and one member of the Liberal Democratic Party, over the opposition of members from Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party.)

Beyond the shareholder resolutions, the company is also facing civil actions in the United States.

Mark Lewis, a British lawyer who has been active in suing News Corp. in Britain and collecting damage awards on behalf of hacking victims, told NBC News this week that he has identified at least one American victim of phone hacking who alleges that his phone was hacked in the United States. Lewis says he has teamed up with U.S. lawyers and plans to file a U.S. lawsuit on behalf of the client — whom he declined to identify -- in the next couple of weeks.

Another U.S. lawsuit, filed last year by several large labor union shareholders, alleges that Murdoch has run News Corp “as his own personal fiefdom” and misused company assets “to advance the selfish business interests of his family”—including paying $615 million to purchase a television and film production company owned by his daughter. The company has moved to dismiss the complaint as without merit, but a Delaware judge is set to hear oral arguments on whether the suit should proceed later this month.

Schwartzman and other media analysts said Tuesday it is far from clear what direct impact the House of Commons report will have on many of these matters or on other potential problems the company may face. 

It would be exceedingly difficult, for example, for a rival media firm to challenge Fox News’s broadcast licenses at the Federal Communications Commission. A federal law enacted in 1996 says such challenges to broadcast licenses can only succeed if it could be demonstrated that the broadcaster committed “misconduct” while running the station in question, not wrongdoing by the broadcaster’s corporate owners in other lines of business.

The British report, moreover, has no legal standing in the U.S., although some experts say it could spur British regulators to challenge News Corp’s stake in B Sky B, the huge British pay television firm that has been a major cash cow for the firm.

But the broader impact, they say, could be in diminishing the power and influence of Murdoch himself. The stinging language in the report’s conclusions seems to echo many of the sharpest critiques leveled by News Corp.’s dissident shareholders.

After blasting Murdoch for “willful blindness to what was going in his companies,” the report stated: “This culture, we consider, permeated from the top throughout the organization and speaks volumes about the lack of corporate governance at News Corporation. We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company.”   

With tensions between Israel and Iran running sky high over the latter's nuclear program, U.S. officials and military analysts are growing increasingly concerned that Israel will launch a multi-phase air and missile attack that could trigger waves of retaliatory missile strikes from Tehran.

Such a shootout could quickly spiral into a regional conflict that would potentially force the U.S. to intervene to protect its interests.

The emerging consensus among current and former U.S. officials and other experts interviewed by NBC News is that that an Israeli attack would be a multi-faceted assault on key Iranian nuclear installations, involving strikes by both warplanes and missiles. It could also include targeted attacks by Israeli special operations forces and possibly even the use of massive explosives-laden drones, they say.

The Iranian response to such an attack is uncertain, but many experts and officials believe it is likely to include retaliatory missile strikes. Iran has more missiles in its arsenal than Israel, according to some estimates, and has the capability of striking targets in most Israeli population centers.

"I think that it would strike Iran as a reasonable response, an eye for an eye," said Christopher J Ferrero, a professor of diplomacy at Seton Hall University in New Jersey and an expert on Middle East missile forces.

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He also said Iran would likely attack major cities with its Shahab 3 missiles, which he said are not as accurate as the Israeli missiles, but would be an effective "instrument of terror … that could certainly cause significant damage to heavily populated suburban and urban areas.

 

Israel possesses advanced anti-missile defenses, but those systems could be overwhelmed if Tehran launched large numbers of missiles, as Ferrero expects.

Given the immense difficulties in carrying out successful air strikes on the four key Iranian installations using its warplanes alone -- as laid out last week by the New York Times, U.S. officials say Israel would be likely to coordinate such airstrikes with waves of missiles. This would greatly increase the chances of penetrating fortifications that Iran has built to protect some of its key installations and overwhelm Iran's air defenses, said the former and current U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Two words:  Jericho missiles," said one former White House and Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, when asked how Israel would attack Iranian targets at great distances. "They are conventionally armed, have a very small CEP (circular error of probability, meaning they are highly accurate) and can be used in conjunction with a strike fighter operation."

Israel has as many as 100 Jericho ballistic missiles – both short- and medium-range – as well as submarine-launched cruise missiles, though the officials say they believe the latter are unlikely to be used. The short-range Jericho I missiles would be of no use in an attack on Iran, because the targets are far beyond its 300-mile range. However, the  medium-range Jericho II's are capable of  hitting targets as far as 900 miles away – or as far east as Tehran. Israel also tested a Jericho III intercontinental ballistic missile in 2008 and Israeli media have reported that it may have deployed one or more of the weapons, which would put all of Iran within reach.

The missiles would most likely be launched from the Hirbat Zekharyah missile range, midway between Israel and the Mediterranean Coast, according to "Critical Mass: the Dangerous Race for Superweapons in a Fragmenting World," by William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem, and various Israeli press reports.

Although designed to be part of Israel's nuclear deterrent force, the Jerichos can be equipped with high explosives as well as nuclear warheads. U.S. officials have said that an Israeli attack, if it happens, would be intended to surgically take out the nuclear facilities, not inflict the mass casualties that would result from a nuclear attack.

Related coverage:
Iran teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC
Panetta report fuels concerns that Israel will attack Iran

Iran has no capability to defend against a missile strike, said Ferrero, the expert on Middle East missile arsenals.

"If the Jerichos are accurate enough to get to their targets, they will get to their targets," he said.

What Iran does have is hundreds of Shahab 3 medium range ballistic missiles, according to U.S. estimates. The Shahab 3 also has a range of roughly 900 miles.

Israel, possibly supplemented by U.S. shipborne anti-missile systems – the Aegis Standard Missile-2 -- could intercept and destroy some of the incoming Iranian missiles, said Ferrero. But the numbers favor Iran, he said.

"I believe that (the Iranians) have a sufficient inventory that they could overwhelm those missile defenses and still get enough missiles through to cause damage," he said.

The critical factor may be the number of  missile launchers in Iran's inventory, Ferrero said, because penetrating Israel's defenses would require numerous  missiles, but also enough launchers to be able to fire them off simultaneously. That number is a closely guarded secret, he said.

Additionally, U.S. intelligence estimates say Iran has supplied Hezbollah with more than 40,000 short-range rockets and missiles since 2006. However, U.S. officials are uncertain whether Hezbollah would follow Iranian orders, and risk Israeli retaliation or, if they did, how many they would fire.  The majority of the rockets and missiles are unguided.  Israel and the U.S. have worked on a short-range missile defense system called Iron Dome, but there are concerns that waves of attacks could overwhelm the system.

Also open to question in U.S. and Israeli military circles is whether an Israeli attack would meet its objective: setting back the Iranian nuclear program anywhere from two to five years.

U.S. officials say Israel would be likely to concentrate its attacks on four key Iranian nuclear complexes. Key facilities within those complexes – the Natanz and Fordo centrifuge facilities, both south of Tehran; the Arak research reactor, southwest of Tehran; and a uranium hexafloride production and research facility near the city of Isfahan – are protected by heavy fortifications, they said.

The Jerichos are stored in tunnels in limestone formations around Hirbat Zekharyah and rolled out for firing. They would likely be used as part of a one-two punch, the officials say. The first attack would be carried out by Israeli strike fighters and would be intended to breach the heavily fortified outer ceilings of the facilities. The second (and possibly even third) wave would be missile attacks aimed at destroying the facilities within, the officials said. 

Asked if Jerichos would have the accuracy and the explosive power to take out hardened bunkers or fortifications believed to be protecting Iran's most-sensitive underground nuclear facilities, a current U.S. official replied, "You would be surprised at their accuracy." The official added that the missiles' warheads would contain a special mix of explosives that could penetrate the Iranian defenses.

U.S. officials also say Israel may have learned the location of facilities that fabricate centrifuge components. These, too, could be targeted.

A 2010 book on the possibility of an Israeli attack laid out the difficulties Israel would face if it attempted to use only its strike fighters on those targets.

 "Attacks against the sites at Natanz, Isfahan and Arak alone would stretch Israel's capability and planners might be reluctant to enlarge the raid further," wrote authors Steven Simon and Dana H. Allin, in "The Sixth Crisis – Iran, Israel and the Rumors of War." Simon, then a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, now heads the Middle East Desk at the National Security Council.

The biggest problem is the fortification of the two centrifuge facilities. Simon and Allin describe the challenge using aircraft only.

"Natanz is the only one of the … likely targets that is largely underground, sheltered by up to 23 meters (75 feet) of soil and concrete," they wrote. "… Bombs used in a ‘burrowing' mode, however, could penetrate deeply enough to fragment the inner surface of the ceiling structures above the highly fragile centrifuge arrays and even precipitate the collapse of the entire structure."

But for the attack to have high odds of success, they argue, aircraft would have to drop additional bombs into the cavities created by the first bombs. That would require "time on target" -- a luxury that the Israeli jets at the outermost limits of their 1,100-mile range would likely not have. While they estimate the success rate of such a plan at "better than 70 percent," they call it "complicated and highly risky."

Another difficulty for attacking Israeli aircraft would be finding a route to the targets that could be flown covertly or with the tacit approval of Sunni Arab states, who are at least as frightened of an Iranian nuclear capability as the Israelis.

Simon and Allin (and others) have written that there are three "plausible routes" that Israeli warplanes would take to attack Iran: a northern approach, likely along the Syrian-Turkish border; a central path that would take them over Jordan and Iraq; and a southern route that would transit the lower end of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The southern route is the most likely, U.S. officials suggest, because the Saudis and other Sunni-dominated Gulf states are eager for someone to take out the Iranian threat. They prefer the U.S. do it, but have reportedly shared intelligence on the Iranian program with the Israelis, if only on a limited basis, according to the U.S. officials.

No matter what route the fighter bombers take, they would use what one U.S. official described as "high-low, low-high" flight paths – flying high first to increase fuel efficiency, then low for most of the trip to evade radar, then climbing high again as the bombs are released in what is known as a "flip toss" from as far as 10 miles from the target.

The Israelis would be prepared to lose aircraft if necessary, the officials said.

Although Simon and Allin do not discuss adding a missile component, other experts, including many current and former U.S. officials, believe the Israelis already have made a decision to have them in the attack menu.

Missile attacks would be coordinated with fighter-bomber attacks (presumably, the Israelis' F-16, F-18 and extended-range F-15I Strike Eagle). The missiles would have to be launched so that warheads strike targets following the strike fighter attacks.  Because of the short flight time, minutes rather than hours in the case of the aircraft, the missile launch would almost certainly take place at the last possible moment to ensure the secrecy of the overall attack.

The Israelis are not planning to use their submarine-launched cruise missile force -- "not enough of them," one official said of the subs. (The Israelis have long had nuclear tipped sub-launched cruise missiles as part of their deterrent force.) 

Beyond the strike fighters and the missile force, U.S. officials suggest the Israelis could use two other "weapons" against Iran.

The first is special operations forces that would be secretly inserted into the country. At the least, they could be employed to illuminate aim points for laser-guided bunker-busting bombs. At the most, they could launch their own attacks on facilities, particularly those believed to contain enriched uranium.

The other is a new generation of large drones with wingspans approaching those of a Boeing 777  (almost 200 feet). Costing $30 million each, the Heron drones are capable of remaining airborne for 40 hours at a time and have a range of 4,600 miles. While they can be equipped with surveillance and electronic warfare equipment, some officials call them "strike drones," meaning they could be loaded with explosives and used to attack Iranian targets.

While the initial days of an Israeli-Iranian conflict would probably be bloody, most experts say that the open warfare would be expected to wind down within days or weeks, since neither side has the ability to occupy the other's territory or enough missiles to sustain attacks.

But that would bring with it its own set of problems, as the conflict would be likely to continue on a lower level, involving covert operations and terrorism.

"You could have a very nasty covert war emerge," said Ferrero.

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.

The Justice Department has gotten the message from journalists, interest groups and government watchdogs and has decided to withdraw its proposal to allow federal agencies to lie to people seeking sensitive documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

Currently, if a requested document is so sensitive that it would be dangerous to acknowledge its very existence, the government is allowed to tell you that it can neither confirm nor deny whether there is such a document.

Last month, the Justice Department proposed a rule revision that would let government agencies tell requesters there is no such document — even if there is. According to the proposal, which was retrieved by the nonprofit investigative project ProPublica, agencies would be allowed to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist."

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(You can read ProPublica's original story here and — assuming you want to plow through all 9,000 words of it — the entire DOJ proposal here.)

The proposal drew together an odd assortment of Washington types in opposition, collecting Republicans like Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas with Democrats like Sens. Pat Leahy of Vermont and Mark Udall of Colorado under the umbrella of the American Civil Liberties Union, which uncovered the proposal.

Grassley sent a letter to the Justice Department last month demanding an explanation. (As the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he can feel fairly certain that his letters get read by top officials there.) He said in a statement this week that "the Justice Department decided that misleading the American people would be wrong, and made the right decision to pull the proposed regulation."

Laura Murphy, who runs the ACLU's D.C. operations, said putting an end to "lies about the mere existence of documents is one step toward restoring Americans' trust in their government."

NPR has a good explanation of the background to the dispute here.

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Alex Johnson covers breaking news, projects and technology for msnbc.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MAlexJohnson and on Facebook at MAlexJohnsonMSNBC.

The Texas suspect charged in the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States claimed in recorded conversations that his Iranian handlers were actively involved in the drug trade and could arrange for large shipments of opium to be delivered to a Mexican drug cartel, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the probe.

The criminal complaint against Manssor Arbabsiar, released by Justice Department officials this week, makes no mention of alleged drug smuggling by the Iranian Qods Force, an elite covert arm of the Iranian military whose top officials allegedly coordinated and funded the plot to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, according to U.S. officials.

But two U.S. law enforcement sources told NBC News that Arbabsiar, in recorded conversations with an undercover drug informant, said in coded language that the same individuals who were orchestrating the bombing plot against the ambassador were involved in drug dealing. He told the informant that his Iranian handlers could arrange to provide Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel, with “multi-ton” shipments of opium, the sources said.

The major drug deal never materialized, however, and the allegations about Qods Force drug smuggling were not pursued because U.S. officials wanted to focus on the attempt to assassinate al-Jubeir on U.S. soil, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The officials said Drug Enforcement Administration director Michele Leonhart was even asked not to appear at the press conference announcing the assassination plot charges -- a noticeable absence given that one of her agency’s informants uncovered the alleged plot. (President Barack Obama, however, later called and thanked Leonhart, said a law enforcement official.)

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Arbabsiar’s assertions about  Qods Force drug dealing  inject another puzzling dimension into a case that has triggered a crisis in U.S.-Iranian relations. While accusing the Qods Force of  arming terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and orchestrating  attacks against American  troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials have never publicly accused the organization of involvement in international narcotics smuggling.

If these allegations are true, “They would be a game changer,” said Douglas Farah, a national security analyst who has closely studied Qods Force activities in Latin American and frequently testified before Congress on the issue.

The Qods Force has built up a significant presence in Latin America, especially in Venezuela, where it has forged close ties with the government of anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez, said Farah. The organization has also long had extremely close ties with,  and directly funded, Hezbollah -- a Mideast terror group that has long been linked to the drug trade and money laundering. But there has been no clear evidence linking the Qods Force directly to narcotics smuggling or to dealing with the Mexican cartels, said Farah. 

Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in 'The Isikoff Files'

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment about the alleged drug discussions, saying the department was not prepared to discuss any aspect of the case that was not in the criminal complaint released this week. “This is not a drug case,” the spokesman said. 

The man behind the alleged plot, Arbabsiar, was an Iranian-American used car salesman with a long history of financial troubles and brushes with the law, including criminal charges for  resisting arrest in 1987 and a 2001 arrest for driving without a proper license, according to a Texas law enforcement official. But he had never been accused of any narcotics charges, said the official. 

According to the criminal complaint released Tuesday, Arbabsiar first met in Mexico on May 24 of this year with a DEA informant who he believed was an operative of Los Zetas, one of Mexico’s most-violent drug cartels. The informant had previously been convicted of state-level drug charges, but avoided jail time and got the charges dismissed by agreeing to serve as a paid undercover informant for the DEA’s Houston field division, according to U.S. officials. 

A U.S. law enforcement official said Arbabsiar came to meet the informant by pure happenstance: While living in Corpus Christi, he had developed a friendship with the informant’s aunt, the official said. .

According to the complaint, Arbabsiar asked the informant the first time he met him if he was knowledgeable about explosives, explaining that he was interested in attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia. The informant replied that he was familiar with C-4, a type of plastic explosives, it said.

Within a week, Arbabsiar flew overseas and returned to the U.S. in late June, holding additional meetings with the informant that were secretly tape-recorded on behalf of the government. In one of these conversations, on July 14, the informant told Arbabsiar that he could arrange to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, but that it would take four men and cost $1.5 million. Arbabsiar agreed, leading U.S. officials to describe the scheme this week as a “$1.5 million” plot. (A key part of the criminal charges against Arbabsiar relates to two later wire transfers totaling $100,000 to a New York bank.) 

It is not clear precisely when the discussions about Qods Force drug smuggling took place.  But one analyst said that such claims by Arbabsiar could fuel skepticism about some aspects of the U.S. charges. 

“This raises additional question marks about this case,” said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council and the author of an upcoming book on U.S.-Iranian relations. “The Qods Force is associated with some other really nasty things, but not this. This doesn’t fit.”

But a senior U.S. law enforcement official disputed that analysis, saying that U.S. officials have received intelligence reports for some time indicating that Qods Forces officers have been working with Venezuelans -- including some officials in that country's government -- who have been involved in shipping cocaine to West Africa. But so far, the official said, there has not been enough evidence to bring any criminal charges against Iranians who have been implicated. 

U.S. officials have released new information accusing three high level Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials of overseeing an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador. One of them, a deputy commander in the Iranian Qods Force, had previously been accused of plotting a highly sophisticated attack that killed five U.S. soldiers in Iraq, according to U.S. government officials and documents made public Tuesday afternoon.

The Qods Force official who coordinated the alleged plot was identified by the Treasury Department as Abdul-Reza Shahlai, the cousin of the suspect, Manssor Arbabsiar. Arababsiar was accused by U.S. law enforcement officials of seeking to carry out the plot to kill Saudi Ambassador Abdul al-Jubeir in Washington, D.C. and carry out other terrorist attacks in the U.S.

Three years ago, Shahlai -- the key Iranian official coordinating the attack -- was designated as a terrorist by the Treasury Department for fomenting violence in Iraq, including working with the anti-U.S. Mahdi Army to carry out a mass attack on U.S. soldiers in Iraq, according to Treasury documents.

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In particular, he was accused of planning a Jan. 20, 2007, attack by Mahdi Army militia members aimed at U.S. soldiers in Karbala, south of Baghdad. In that attack, up to a dozen fighters with false IDs disguised themselves as an American security team to penetrate the provincial government building in Karbala and open fire. One U.S. soldier was killed in the initial attack and four others were abducted and found shot to death soon after.

Shahlai was not identified by name in the criminal complaint released by the Justice Department, referred to only as a "cousin" of the suspect, a high-ranking official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

But on Tuesday the Treasury Department identified him and two other senior Iranian Qods Force officers as being involved in both the earlier attack and the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador on U.S. soil and imposed economic sanctions against them. The Treasury Department move significantly ratchets up the pressure against Tehran.

The senior Qods Force officers were identified as Maj. Gen. Qasem Solemami and Halem Abdollahi.

Solemami oversaw the Iranian officers involved in the plot, according to the Treasury announcement. Soleimani has twice been previously blacklisted by the department, most recently for allegedly overseeing Qods Forces in involved in human rights abuses against protesters in Syria.

Abdollahi allegedly coordinated aspects of the operation aimed at the Saudi ambassador, according to the announcement.

The Qods Force, an arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, is described by Treasury as the Iranian government's primary foreign action arm for support of terrorist organizations and extremist groups around the world. It is accused of providing training, logistical assistance and material and financial support to the Taliban, Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas, among others. Its officers have also supported attacks against U.S. and allied troops and diplomatic missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Treasury announcement.

In a strongly worded letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon obtained by NBC News, Iran’s Ambassador to the U.N., Mohammad Khazaee, said Iran “strongly and categorically rejects these fabricated and baseless allegations.”

Accusing the U.S. of “warmongering,” Khazaee charged that U.S. authorities were carrying out an “evil plot in line with their anti-Iranian policy to divert attention from the current economic and social problems at home and the popular revolutions and protests against United States’ long supported dictatorial regimes abroad.”

Earlier Tuesday, Iran rejected U.S. claims that Tehran was involved in a plot to assassinate al-Jubeir.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called the claims a "prefabricated scenario."

"These old-fashioned behaviors are based on the long-standing hostile American-Zionist policies and are ridiculous show in line with scenarios to provoke division," the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted Mehmanparast as saying.

By Pete Williams, NBC News justice correspondent

Is it legal for the federal government to kill a U.S. citizen overseas, someone who has never been charged or convicted of a crime?  Civil liberties groups are condemning the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, but many legal scholars say it is justified.

No U.S. court has ever weighed in on the question, because judges consider these sorts of issues exclusively matters for the president. 

Anwar al-Awlaki's father, Nasser, with the help of the ACLU, sued President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and CIA Director Leon Panetta a year ago, when it became clear that the U.S. was targeting  the younger al-Awlaki.  But U.S. District Judge John Bates threw the case out, ruling that federal courts were in no position to evaluate whether someone was a terrorist whose activities threatened national security and against whom the use of deadly force could be justified.

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"This court recognizes the somewhat unsettling nature of its conclusion -- that there are circumstances in which the executive's unilateral decision to kill a U.S. citizen overseas is 'constitutionally committed to the political branches' and judicially unreviewable," Bates said, quoting an earlier decision on a similar issue.

The ACLU lawyer who handled the case, Jameel Jaffer, said Friday that the U.S. program that targeted al-Awlaki was a violation of both U.S. and international law.

"The government's authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the president, any president, with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country," Jaffer said.

But Kenneth Anderson, an international law scholar at American University's Washington College of Law, said U.S. citizens who take up arms with an enemy force have been considered legitimate targets through two world wars, even if they are outside what is traditionally considered the battlefield.

"Where hostiles go, there is the possibility of hostilities.  The U.S.  has never accepted the proposition that if you leave the active battlefield, suddenly you are no longer targetable," Anderson said.

In early 2010, the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, told a congressional hearing that the U.S. was prepared to kill Americans affiliated with al-Qaida, without mentioning al-Awlaki by name.

Vote: Should U.S. be able to kill its citizens overseas without due process?

"If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that," by which he meant authority from the executive branch, not the courts.

Blair said the military and intelligence agencies had authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad who were engaged in terrorism if their activities threatened  Americans.  Since then, U.S. officials have said that al-Awlaki's role in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had shifted from propagandist to operational tactician and strategist.

The State Department's senior legal adviser, Harold Koh, plainly stated last year the Obama administration's view that it had authority to undertake drone attacks in countries where al-Qaida operatives were located.

Radical cleric influenced many plots, US says

"The U.S. is in armed conflict with al-Qaida as well as the Taliban and associated forces in response to the horrific acts of 9-11 and may use force consistent with its right to self-defense under international law," Koh said in a speech to a Washington legal symposium.

Though he did not specifically address the issue of targeting Americans, many legal scholars believe his speech was an implicit statement that U.S. citizens could be legitimate targets.

First Read: Ron Paul condemns al-Awlaki assassination

Robert Chesney, an expert on international law at the University of Texas School of Law, concluded in a recent law review article that al-Awlaki could be legally killed "if he is in fact an operational leader within AQAP, as this role would render him a functional combatant in an organized armed group."

Anderson, of American University's law school, said it's important to note that al-Awlaki was not targeted because of his role as an al-Qaida propagandist. 

"The U.S. is not justifying this on the basis that it's going after him for incitement. He was being targeted because he had gone operational," Anderson said, adding that he believed the killing was entirely legal. 

"My view of this targeted killing is straightforwardly, congratulations, Mr. President," he said.

By Robert Windrem
NBC News Investigative Producer for Special Projects 

As U.S.-Pakistani relations spiral downward, the specter of a showdown between the increasingly antagonistic allies is garnering more attention, including the worst-case scenario of the U.S. attempting to “snatch” Pakistan’s 100-plus nuclear weapons if it feared they were about to fall into the wrong hands.

That would be a disastrous miscalculation, former Pakistani President and army chief Pervez Musharraf told NBC News, saying that such an incursion would lead to “total confrontation” between the United States and Pakistan.

Privately, current and former U.S. officials say that ensuring the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons has long been a high national security priority, even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and that plans have been drawn up for dealing with worst-case scenarios in Pakistan.

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The greatest success of the U.S. war on terrorism – the military operation that killed Osama bin Laden in his safehouse in Pakistan in May – has fueled the concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, increasing suspicions among U.S. officials that he had  support within the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service, and emboldening those in Washington who believe an orchestrated campaign of lightning raids to secure Pakistan’s nukes could succeed.

It’s no secret that the United States has a plan to try to grab Pakistan’s nuclear weapons -- if and when the president believes they are a threat to either the U.S. or U.S. interests. Among the scenarios seen as most likely: Pakistan plunging into internal chaos, terrorists mounting a serious attack against a nuclear facility, hostilities breaking out with India or Islamic extremists taking charge of the government or the Pakistan army.

In the aftermath of the bin Laden raid, U.S. military officials have testified before Congress about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and the threat posed by “loose nukes” – nuclear weapons or materials outside the government’s control. And earlier Pentagon reports also outline scenarios in which U.S. forces would intervene to secure nuclear weapons that were in danger of falling into the wrong hands.

But out of fear of further antagonizing an important ally, officials have simultaneously tried to tone down the rhetoric by stressing progress made by Islamabad on the security front.

Such discussions of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, now believed to consist of as many as 115 nuclear bombs and missile warheads, have gotten the attention of current and former Pakistani officials. In an interview with NBC News early this month, Musharraf warned that a snatch-and-grab operation would lead to all-out war between the countries, calling it “total confrontation by the whole nation against whoever comes in.”

“These are assets which are the pride of Pakistan, assets which are dispersed and very secure in very secure places, guarded by a corps of 18,000 soldiers,” said a combative Musharraf, who led Pakistan for nearly a decade and is again running for president. “… (This) is not an army which doesn't know how to fight.  This is an army which has fought three wars.  Please understand that.”

Pervez Hoodboy, Pakistan’s best known nuclear physicist and a human rights advocate, rarely agrees with the former president. But he, too, says a U.S. attempt to take control of Pakistan’s nukes would be foolhardy. 

“They are said to be hidden in tunnels under mountains, in cities, as well as regular air force and army bases,” he said. “A U.S. snatch operation could trigger war; it should never be attempted.”

Despite such comments, interviews with current and former U.S. officials, military reports and even congressional testimony indicate that Pakistan’s weaponry has been the subject of continuing discussions, scenarios, war games and possibly even military exercises by U.S. intelligence and special operations forces regarding so-called “snatch-and-grab” operations.

“It’s safe to assume that planning for the worst-case scenario regarding Pakistan nukes has ready taken place inside the U.S. government,” said Roger Cressey, former deputy director of counterterrorism in the Clinton and Bush White House and an NBC News consultant. “This issue remains one of the highest priorities of the U.S. intelligence community ... and the White House.” 

Carefully worded assurances
Mindful of the growing distrust and suspicions between Washington and Islamabad, U.S. officials have publicly tried to defuse concerns that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could be compromised. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress two weeks ago that Pakistan’s atomic arsenal has become “physically more secure” and the U.S. has seen “training improve” for personnel charged with securing the weapons. 

But does “more secure” and “improved” training mean the Pakistanis have met U.S. standards?

Jeffrey T. Richelson, an intelligence historian, has written extensively about the possibility of a U.S. military operation aimed at Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, notably in his 2009 book “Defusing Armageddon.” The book focuses on the U.S. Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST), which might play leading a role in disarming Pakistani weapons along with elements of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). 

The nuts-and-bolts of how such an operation would work – such as whether teams would attempt to disarm or destroy the weapons – remain highly classified.

But Richelson notes that without referring to Pakistan by name, Gen. Peter Pace, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,  in 2006 discussed two types of operations where  in which the U.S. military would seek to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of al-Qaida or other militants. 

Detailed in a military policy document titled “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,” the two scenarios were: “elimination operations” – defined as “operations systematically to locate, characterize, secure, disable and/or destroy a State or non-State actor’s WMD programs and related capabilities” – and “interdiction operations” – finding and seizing nuclear devices or nuclear material it has been removed from a nation’s storage bunkers but not yet delivered to a terrorist group.

Richelson also obtained an unclassified PowerPoint presentation titled “Detecting, Identifying and Localizing WMD” by the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SOLIC).  In it were slides referring to “clandestine or low-visibility special operations taken to: locate, seize, destroy, capture, recover or render safe WMD,” either on land or sea.  He said such a mission has been a special operations forces priority since 2002.

Neither the report nor the PowerPoint presentation specify where such operations would be considered, but Richelson says that both were prepared with Pakistan in mind.

“The focus on Pakistan,” he wrote, “is the result of its being both the least stable of the nine nuclear weapons states and the one where there has been significant support for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, not only among the general population but also within the military and intelligence forces.”

Publicly, U.S. officials don’t want to embarrass or infuriate Pakistani officials by suggesting such an operation would be possible, a point brought home in a White House press conference on April 29, 2009.  After President Barack Obama spoke of the confidence he had in the Pakistani Army’s ability to secure the nuclear weapons, NBC News’ Chuck Todd began to ask if the U.S. military would step in and seize weapons that were at risk.

Obama quickly cut him off.  “I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals of that sort.  I feel confident that nuclear arsenal will remain out of militant hands, OK?”

'All nuclear matters are controlled by the army'
While the U.S. has a non-proliferation policy that aims for the elimination of Third World weaponry, it also has been working with Islamabad to minimize the current threat, sending an estimated $100 million to Pakistan since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to improve the safety and security of the Pakistani nukes.

But Pakistan never permitted U.S. officials to visit the weapons bunkers or see how the U.S.-purchased equipment was working. In fact, Richelson writes, the Pakistanis have gone so far as to set up decoy bunkers to throw off anyone trying to keep track of the arsenal.

And physical security and protection from terrorists only addresses one aspect of the threat, Hoodboy said.

“Technology determines safety, but only partly,” he told NBC News. “Ultimately it depends upon the men who have control over nuclear weapons. … Governments come, governments go. But all nuclear matters are controlled by the army. The important question is whether the army has total, absolute control over its nukes. I have no idea whether this control is absolute, and doubt how anyone can know for sure.”

There are additional reasons to be concerned. In July 2009, for example, the journal of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point reported that “home-grown terrorists” had tried to enter Pakistani nuclear facilities three times between 2007 and 2008, when Pakistan was wracked by rioting and a series of destructive suicide bombings.

Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security Research Center at the University of Bradford in England, wrote of the attacks.

“These have included an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sarghoda on Nov. 1, 2007, an attack on Pakistan’s nuclear air base at Kamra by a suicide bomber on Dec. 10, 2007, and, perhaps most significantly, the Aug. 20, 2008, attack when Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to one of the armament complexes at the Wah cantonment, considered one of Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons assembly sites.”

Pakistani officials have played down the seriousness of such attacks, noting that the attackers were unable to enter what are large military bases, much less penetrate the inner defenses. 

Musharraf, who was president of Pakistan during the three reported attacks, dismissed the threat in talking with NBC News. Asked if terrorists were targeting Pakistan’s nuclear assets, he replied, “I don't think so.  I don't think they are trying actively to get to our nuclear assets.  And we have no such intelligence. Never.” 

His statement is, at best, a disingenuous and narrow reading of the intelligence, according to former senior U.S. intelligence officials, who like the others quoted in this article spoke on condition of anonymity. These officials point to an August 2001 campfire meeting between bin Laden and his successor, Ayman al Zawahiri, and two Pakistani nuclear scientists, part of a so-called Islamic charity called UTN, on the other. With planning for the 9/11 attacks nearly complete, the two al-Qaida leaders wanted a tutorial on nuclear weapons development, according to U.S. intelligence reports. 

Tenet's tense meeting
Then-CIA Director George Tenet, in fact, wrote in his memoir, “At the Center of the Storm,” of a tense discussion he had with Musharraf in Islamabad shortly after the U.S. found out about the meeting.

“After a few pleasantries … I launched into a description of the campfire meeting between (O)sama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and the UTN leaders,” Tenet wrote. “‘Mr. President,’ I said, ‘you cannot imagine the outrage there would be in my country if it were learned that Pakistan is coddling scientists who are helping bin Laden acquire a nuclear weapon. Should such a device ever be used, the full fury of the American people would be focused on whoever helped al-Qaida in its cause.”

In a testimony before Congress four months ago, the CIA’s new director, Gen. David Petraeus, left little doubt the U.S. still fears the worst. “There are certainly elements in Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban and several other varieties of elements who generally have symbiotic relationships, the most extreme of which might, indeed, value access to nuclear weapons or other weapons that could cause enormous loss of life,” said Petraeus, then commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Like others in the U.S. government, however, Petraeus felt duty bound to note, “There is considerable security for the Pakistani nuclear weapons.”  But he appeared to choose his words with care. “Considerable” does not mean “state of the art,” for example.

Not everyone thinks the U.S. is very worried about Pakistan’s nukes falling into the wrong hands. Zia Mian, a colleague of Hoodboy’s and director of the Project on Peace and Security in South Asia at Princeton, said war gaming and exercising for dire situations is something the Pentagon and CIA do all the time.

“The U.S. exercised global nuclear war. They’ve exercised attacking Iran. You’ve got to be ready,” Mian argues. “It suggests to me there are people whose job is to be worried. So when someone asks you, you say you’re worried. But when you’re reading the WikiLeaks disclosure, when you read embassy talking points, the nuclear weapons barely figure.”

Of course, the main question is if, in the last resort, the U.S. did attempt to “snatch” Pakistan’s weapons, would it work? Hoodboy thinks it’s unlikely to have the intended effect and could very well lead to one of two scenarios, both with potentially disastrous outcomes.

“An American attack on Pakistan's nuclear production or storage sites would be extremely dangerous and counterproductive,” he said. “By comparison the bin Laden operation involved only minor risks. Even if a single Pakistani nuke (out of roughly 100) escapes destruction, that last one could be unimaginably dangerous.” Hoodboy added that no seems to have thought through another scenario, one where there is confusion about who snatched the bomb. “The situation is more uncertain than even this. For one, it might trigger nuclear war with India, even if India was not involved in the snatch.”

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