Iraq attempts to poison water at US base

Jordanian authorities arrested Iraqi agents in connection with a botched plot to poison the water supply that serves American troops in the eastern Jordanian desert near the border with Iraq. The scheme involved poisoning a water tank that supplies American soldiers at a military base in Khao, which lies in an arid region of the eastern frontier near the industrial town of Zarqa.

The Jordanian authorities have arrested several Iraqi agents in connection with a plot to poison the water supply that serves American troops in the eastern desert of Jordan near the border with Iraq, officials here said today.

The small group of men were involved in a scheme to poison a water tank that supplies hundreds of United States troops at a military base in Khao, in an arid region of Jordan's eastern frontier near the Jordanian industrial town of Zarqa. While it was unclear how close they came to contaminating the water supply, no one was sickened or injured, the officials said.

There was scant information today about the plot, although officials said it was connected to the expulsion late last month of three Iraqi diplomats, who were removed from Jordan for undermining its national security. Officials at the Iraqi embassy here, which has been all but cut off from Baghdad because of the war, were unavailable to comment.

In a separate incident, Western diplomats said today that four other Iraqis were detained last week for a bungled plan to set fire to a luxury hotel in Amman where many American journalists -- and some American military personnel -- are staying. The four, who are believed to be Iraqi intelligence officers, tried to burn down the top-floor executive lounge of the Grand Hyatt Amman Hotel with a primitive incendiary bomb, but the hotel's sprinkler system quickly extinguished the flames.

As early as last fall, the Central Intelligence Agency warned that the Iraqi government might conduct terrorist operations against the United States and its interests overseas if American forces invaded Iraq. Two weeks ago, the American Embassy in Amman released a statement warning Americans here to keep a low profile and to avoid places where Westerners gather, including restaurants, fitness centers, nightclubs and bars.

We recognize and are concerned deeply about the potential for terrorist attacks against American citizens and interests as a result of the military conflict in Iraq, one American official said.

A network of Iraqi agents set up shop in Amman at the end of the first gulf war, when the city was flooded with thousands of Iraqi dissidents who fled the oppression of Saddam Hussein's government. While the agents have mostly concerned themselves with keeping tabs on the Iraqi exile community here, officials said, their extensive presence could easily be used to wage covert attacks against American targets.

There are reportedly thousands of American troops in Jordan, operating Patriot missile batteries and at bases near the Iraqi border.

Jordan is particularly sensitive and susceptible to terrorist attacks, given the many reports that American soldiers have been operating from its territory -- an allegation that Jordanian officials have repeatedly denied. Military officials say they believe that Mr. Hussein may have stashed chemical or biological weapons deep in vacant stretches of the Iraqi desert near the border with Jordan.

Western diplomats in Jordan already live under tight security. Their travel is restricted, and their families were evacuated in February because of fears of a possible attack.

In October, Laurence Foley, an official with the United States Agency for International Development, was shot outside his house by two men who were later connected to Al Qaeda. In 1999, there was a foiled plot to blow up the Radisson Hotel in Amman.

Today, a crew of workers laid a new patch of carpet on the floor of the Hyatt's executive lounge, which provides a lovely vista of Amman's scattered white-stone houses and its dusty terraced hills. The smells of fresh paint and varnish wafted through the wood-paneled room.

Hotel officials denied that any attack had occurred and said the lounge had been damaged by a recent electrical fire.

Near the ninth-floor elevator bank was a sign apologizing to the hotel's guests.

The temporary Grand Club Lounge is in Suite 907 now due to maintenance reasons, it read. ''Sorry for the inconvenience. The Management.'