The blood money deal to release CIA contractor Raymond Davis

CIA contractor Raymond Davis was released from a Pakistani prison today, thanks to the Muslim ritual known as "blood money." Next, Pakistan and America will try to clear away some of the bitterness aroused by the case and establish a better relationship based, as President Obama likes to say, on "mutual interest and mutual respect."

The CIA and its Pakistani counterpart, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, are planning to do just that. A Pakistani says the goal is "new rules of engagement." A U.S. official says they will discuss "the contours of the relationship." For both sides, it represents an attempt to rebuild trust after weeks of bitter accustations following the Jan. 27 arrest of Davis for killing two Pakistanis in Lahore.

In Pakistan's tribal culture, "blood money" payments are seen as a face-saving way of resolving bloody disputes. I described the blood money approach in a March 2 column , after interviews on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Pakistani officials.

This deal had four principal architects: Hussein Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, who shared the "blood money" idea with Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Kerry then traveled to Pakistan, where me met with President Asif Ali Zardari, with the leaders of the Punjab government that was holding Davis, and with top officials of the ISI. Haqqani also visited CIA Director Leon Panetta the evening of Feb. 28 to share the "blood money" idea with him, according to a U.S. official. The final details were worked out by Panetta and ISI Director-General Ahmed Shuja Pasha.

U.S. and Pakistani sources said the process that led to Davis's release Wednesday included a series of steps: First, the U.S. agreed to pay compensation to the families of the two Pakistanis Davis killed on Jan. 27. A Pakistani lawyer quoted by the Associated Press said the total payments amounted to $2.3 million. Another Pakistani source told me the payments were less than $1 million for each family. According to a U.S. official, the actual negotiations were conducted by Pakistanis, but the U.S. has agreed to pay the bill.

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