senior administration official tells me this was international murder for hire. here's what we have been told. two men charged in an alleged plot to assassinate the saudi arabiian ambassador to the united states. both are iranian. one is also a naturalized u.s. citizen, who's in custody and identified as 56-year-old manssor arbabsiar. manssor arbabsiar appeared in a federal courthouse in downtown manhattan this afternoon. he did not enter a plea. according to the complaint that we read, manssor arbabsiar planned for someone to kill the saudi arabian ambassador at one of his favorite restaurants in washington, d.c. he told an informant that mass casualties didn't matter saying "if the hundred go with him, exbest metive them." . the plot is a work of intrigue. manssor arbabsiar met with a dea member posing as a member of one of mexico's biggest violent drug cartels. it got them to agree to assassinate the ambassador for $1.5 million. he planned to pursue an attack on the israeli embassy in washington. with help from the mexican government, manssor arbabsiar was arrested at new york's jfk airport on september 29th. he confessed. now, u.s. officials have been talking throughout the day saying what is perhaps most important here is the direct link that could exist to the iranian government, to the highest levels. apparently the -- manssor arbabsiar's cousin was a big general in the iranian military an the revolutionary guards, a foreign special forces division. it could go to the top of the iranian government. manssor arbabsiar also gave officials and the fbi a lot of other information. peter king is on the inside of this. he's the chair of the homeland security committee in the house. congressman, thank you for being with us us tonight. it is an amazing story no matter how you look at it. when did you learn about it? >> i learned about it this morning. the fbi contacted me. under the law they deal with the intelligence committee and i was briefed on it this morning. you are right. this is, to me, historic in a terrible sentence sense of the word. the iranians have crossed a line. if this had been carried out you are talking about an act of murder on foreign soil of a american diplomate. this would have been an act of war. this goes beyond anything that has happened before. it is flagrant and notorious and raised this whole relationship between united states and iran to a precipitous level. >> dianne feinstein said a few moments ago, i'm reading off my blackberry, that it is sur prooiz mizing on her party but before a country would go after an ambassador of another country in a third country just like this, they would have had the accept dance tans of the government. i don't think how it could be done any other way. what's your sense or information of how high this does go in the iranian government. >> again i'm surmising also but i know chairman roger of the intelligence committee he has the same opinion as senator feinstein and mine as well that you couldn't have planned something of this magnitude without the top levels of the iranian government and knowing the supreme leader, the president. this is such -- again, this violates all international norms, violates international law and basically you are talking about an act of war. i think the united states has to consider taking significant action. i don't think that sanctions alone are enough. i think we should consider actually deporting or removing the iranian officials at the u.n., the staff at the u.n. and iranian intersection here. because we can't let it go without a strong reaction. otherwise we would encourage iranians and others to realize it is open season in the united states. we can't allow that. >> from the complaint that the government has filed here, the quote they have manssor arbabsiar giving to an inform smant "they want the ambassador killed. if think hundred go with them, expletive them. that clearly indicates they were willing to have mass casualties. >> absolutely. it is bad enough to go after the ambassador, any ambassador. but also to run the risk and not care about killing hundreds of americans, innocent people. this is an act of war if it were carried out and to me they were plotting an ak of war. and i agree with governor cain. it is not officially sanctioned by a government, a government which has an army and armed forces and has people in charge. for them to take or contemplate and plan an action such as this we have to have a strong response. >> chairman, i'm a little confused. obviously sanctions the u.s. imposed more financial sanctions today. that's part of what they did. from the statements we have, very careful to make a point there's been no shift in military preparedness or shifts in the persian gulf. why is it given what you are saying that we seem to be explicitly backing off the military side? >> well, i'd want to get out in front of the president. i'm saying i would support whatever action the president wishes to take as commander in chief. i think we should consider some, at least signs of military activity by us as movement of troops or carriers, whatever. something to indicate how seriously we are taking this and as i said another measure we could take also would be to remove from the country the iranian officials at the u.n. and in washington. that would send a strong signal. we should not be, i don't think automatically saying we are not going to have a military option. i think everything should be on the table when you talk about a potential attack against the united states, an act of war. >> let me ask you what this means in terms of the next steps here. iran's nuclear program seems to be on the back burner. is this something we should be more aggressive on? >> again, without going in to open details. people at the high levels of our government are concerned about the iranian nuclear program. this may be would prompt even more so. i believe that we are very concerned about it. and that's really as far as i'll go. we cannot ignore the reality of that. there are people in our government and in other governments that know how serious it is and i'll just leave it at that. >> thank you very much chairman king. appreciate the time and information. thanks again. >> erin, thank you very much. and now to tom cain who chaired the 9-11 commission aimed at preventing future terror attacks. governor cain, appreciate your taking the time. you heard peter king refer to this as an extraordinary story and it is. almost seems make believe. do the attacks surprise you? >> it totally surprises me, because it is uncharacteristic of the iranians or anybody else. the idea of assassinating somebody using criminal money, drug money from mexico to actually do an assassination in this nation's capital, that's pretty close to an act of war. you don't go to somebody else's capitol and blow up anybody. tremendous risk. >> i wanted to ask about that. eric holder, the attorney general has stopped from fully implicating the highest levels of the iranian government but others like dianne feinstein are saying she doesn't see any other way it could have happened. if the highest levels of the iranian government were involved, we would have to go with military action, wouldn't we? >> well, we have to find out first what happened. the iranian government is not autonomous. there's a high ayatollah and a leader and a bunch of other people and they are not all together. whether this is done by a faction in the iranian government without the knowledge of the rest of the iranian government, it just seems so strange. they are known as professionals in the intelligence world. we don't like what they do but they are known as professionals and the idea they would attempt something like this. use huge amounts of money brought in from criminal activity in mexico to try to assassinate somebody in the nation's capitol is crazy. it makes no sense to me and i don't understand it. >> let's bring in senator menendez, a member of the committee on foreign relations to talk about that. thank you for joining us. appreciate talking to you again. let me ask you. peter keen was describing this. if it is at the highest levels as an ak of war. would you agree with that assessment? and if so, does it mean that military action needs to be on the table? >> well, obviously it didn't take place, and this is interseeded. i'm not sure that we are talking about a full engagement or an ak of war but it does allow two 2:00 things that we should do needily, go to the u.n. and get the chinese and others to engage in the full enforcement of the sanctions that u.s. passed against iran and the nuclear weapon desires and secondly it should be mufg our legislation now in the congress so that we can close those loopholes that exist in the sanction legislation and tighten the noose. >> we have worked on that in prior stories, which the loopholes are amazing they do exist. do you think it is possible, jimmy rubin was bringing in idea up that china, which is the biggest buyer of iranian rude and driving their economy, could this force china to pick between two huge crude oil supplies, saudi arabia and iran and isolate iran? >> i think it is a tremendous opportunity for the united states and the world to create that type of pressure. i think it is a great opportunity for the saudis who were clearly the first instance of who is going to be attack, their ambassador to make that case as well. and i think we have an opportunity to change the dynamic and close those back-door channels that have been open to iran particularly with refined petroleum products they need and their financial institutions as well. >> all right." up front" next, the terror suspect claims his cousin is a big general in the iranian military. iran calls its involvement allegations fallacy. and the gop candidates defending their economic plans in new hampshire tonight. none, though, as catchy as 9-9-t. ♪ [ cellphone rings ] cut! 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[ male announcer ] stop the madness of treating frequent heartburn. it's simple with prilosec otc. one pill a day. twenty-four hours. zero heartburn. no heartburn in the first place. great. it reads like the pages of a hollywood script. that's how fbi director robert mueller described the plot. but when iran spoke they said just like a movie it is made up and this is the quote cnn received from the iranian government." this is a child's story. from our perspective, this is a fabrication. jamie rubin is former assistant secretary of state. and francis townsend and former homeland security adviser to president bush is with us. we want to start with the question of whether senior government officials in iran knew what was going on. i know there is some complexity. iran said. >> iran gains nothing and cannot afford an open confrontation with the united states. so the accusation that this alleged plot can be traced directly to the highest levels of iran's government i think deserves a good bit of skepticism. >> what do you think? i iran gains nothing, doesn't go to the top? >> i don't think that one shouldn't be skeptical, the way reza suggested but one should work on the assumption that this high-level forces group that's been responsible for terrorist attacks in iraq against u.s. forces, back against u.s. forces in saudi arabia in 1995, the same group from the irgc, the revolutionary guards, wouldn't take such a dramatic step of what peter kean called a potential act of war without assuming they had the approval at the top. i would switch the burden of proof in this case, not to be skeptical about it, but to assume that the supreme leader would have in some way authorized his people to continue this covert war against saudi arabia through this method of crazy scheme involving the dea informant. >> what about the irdc, the revolutionary guards the numbers are all over. we have done reports, 30 to 80% of the economy is controlled by them. you can get numbers all over the map. it is a big range. the first thing the u.s. has done is to increase sanctions, which we already had a lot of sanctions. is that the best we can come up with? >> i think you heard secretary clinton in her statement indicate that they are going to go though the u.n. security council. they have not yet called an emergency meeting. they have begun to brief allies. the british have come out and said they will support the u.s. investigation and support the imposition of sanctions but the real question is russia and china. will this be enough? will the facts of this case push them to be more aggressive and support sanctions against iran. >> jamie, i know china is a big problem, the biggest buyer of iranian crude oil and the foreign currency as well. is this enough to get them on board? >> i think if these set of facts are demonstrated, if additional intelligence is provided to russia and china, they would have to acknowledge that not only is this a state sponsorship of terrorism but against another party saudi arabia who both of these countries want to be on the right side of. saudi arabia is the largest provider of oil in the world. this attack is directly on the kings closest adviser al jabbar and close to abdullah. i think it will put these countries in an uncomfortable position of having to choose between iran and saudi arabia. my guess is if the awe studies are as angry as they should be that they should be able to convince china and russia to do more than they have up to now. >> why do you think, fran, the saudis -- they have put out a brief statement but not a formal response yet. why the delay do you think? >> i do think -- well, look, we understand this was a plot uncovered by the united states. the saudis have been in the receiving mode. tom donilon briefed the king on this and they kept them up to speed on the investigation but for the moment the saudis are con toent let the united states make public the details of the case and sbe gin international action against them. it is characteric of their foreign policy to sit back, see how the coalition is forming and then weigh in once they have a better sense of the support for it. >> it is amazing, as you point out to force china to pick between saudi arabia and iran would be incredible if the united states could force that to happen. >> look, the battle that is going on publicly, privately, covertly, in the religious sphere between iran and saudi arabia has been going on for a very long time, and this, i would argue, is a substantial escalation of that war for influence and power in the greater middle east area. because it's so personal, because it involves the assassination of the close adviser to the king, i think it will change something dramatic and iran will now be on the back foot on the nuclear issue, on the terrorism issue and if, for example, they were to support another attack on the united states forces in iraq through some equipment, i think that would increase now the chances that the united states being forced to respond to iran militarily. >> can we? we have defense cuts and several fronts already. do we have the force and ability to do that. the government made it clear we are not shipping ships or moving anyone in thing. they are trying to take military off the table but if we needed to. >> there's been contingency planning for such an eventuality. there will be great challenges to military intervention in iran but you can be sure the department of defense has made contingency plans. >> thank you so much. jamie, fran great to see you both in person. still "up front," peter bergen gives us more details about the man at the center of this, adel al-jubeir, the man at the center of the plot. and one of the most vicious, dangerous violent cartels in mexico involved. we have that story. ♪ [ male announcer ] we're not employers or employees. not white collar or blue collar or no collars. we are business in america. and every day we awake to the same challenges. but at prudential we're helping companies everywhere find new solutions to manage risk, capital and employee benefits, so american business can get on with business. ♪ more on the target of the alleged say sas nation plot, adel al-jubeir. he graduated from the university of north texas fx in 1982. he got his masters from georgetown. he's not a royal but he is a close confidant of king abdullah and served as ambassador to washington for near flooif years. my impression of him, very pro-american, very air diet, very likable, very casual, especially in contrast with other saudi officials, helpful to journalist and for those who think of saudi arabia and think of the issues like women driving or women's inability to drive there, very pro-woman, understanding of those issues and how big of a pr issue they are for saudi arabia. in short, an easy guy to talk to. cnn's national security analyst peter bergen knows him extremely well. what's your impression of the ambassador? >> i think a lot of the things that you said are accurate, erin. i can't claim to know him extremely well. i know him as well as several hundred other people in washington. i have had dinner with him in washington and at his house in riyadh. he is an extremely intelligent, well informed and a guy that knows the united states very well, studied in the united states and spent more adult life in the united states than any other country except saudi arabia at this point. he is very close to king abdullah. he was close to crown prince abdullah. he assumed the monarchy when i visited for the first counterterrorism conference had. fran town send was representing the united states. it was clear that adel al-jubeir was telling crown prince about dull what who the guests were and what they did, guiding him through the basically the people attending the conference. 1:00 one thing, erin that struck me in the indictment, which if you read refers to a restaurant in washington where the attack was supposed to happen. senators were going to be there, 100, 150 people killed potentially. that corresponds to georgetown, where have met ambassador adel al-jubeir on a number of occasions in the past. the universal restaurants in washington where somebody like this would go routinely and they correspond to the indictment really does suggest it is cafe milano in georgetown. >> oh, wow. i want to read out of the complaint the words used when talking about killing. as you said possibly 100 casualties burhanuddin rabbani. if the hundred go with him expletive them. which is showing how little they care about casualties. >> it is routine for the saudis. this is often they aren't, as fran indicated earlier, if they don't know what the right response is or haven't formulated one, this is not a government that is in to routinely making available statements to journalists. sometimes you see something come out the interior of the ministry but these are infrequent. this is not a government that