Iraqi Inquiries About Protection of U.S. Water Systems Reported

Iraqis have been seeking information on the security of U.S. public water systems, and the FBI has begun warning water utilities across the country about the danger of terrorist attacks, Newsday has learned.

A security consulting firm that specializes in protecting public water has been contacted four times between last spring and shortly before the August invasion of Kuwait by Iraqis who asked what measures water utilities take to prevent sabotage or contamination, the company’s president said in an interview.

Kim Petersen, a former security aide to former secretaries of state Henry A. Kissinger and Alexander M. Haig, confirmed reports from a water industry source that Iraqis sought information from his consulting company, HydroSEC of Herndon, Va., in the Washington suburbs. He said the company gave the Iraqis no information and reported the approaches to the FBI.

“We were contacted on four separate occasions by individuals inside Iraq requesting information on what can be done to deter terrorist attacks on water supplies,” said Petersen, whose company maintains computer files on U.S. water systems. “They also asked about our qualifications for doing security work in their country. But since Iraq doesn’t suffer from any high threat of internal terrorist attacks, that was just a pretext.”