Posted on 06/28/2002 11:47:35 AM PDT by knighthawk
CALGARY - Two Iranian men ''capable of posing a threat to Canada'' scouted a gigantic natural gas facility on the Alberta-Saskatchewan border three months before Sept. 11, the National Post has learned.
The sprawling facility, near Empress, Alta., is made up of a series of natural gas processing plants and pipelines and is the key export point for Canadian natural gas shipments to the United States. Canada supplies nearly 30% of all American gas and a disruption could shut down industry, home heating and power generation in vast portions of the United States.
Information about the two men, one of whom lives in the Calgary area, was discovered just days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by the Alberta Solicitor-General's office after a meeting with the Empress plant manager, Terry Timoruski.
The manager said he was concerned about two individuals who had toured in June, 2001.
He handed over their names to the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Officials would not say why the men were deemed a danger but Iran, which the White House has deemed part of an ''axis of evil,'' has had an active spy program in Canada for the past decade and has used the country as a staging ground for espionage.
Iran also works closely with the terrorist group Hezbollah, which is strongly anti-American. Hezbollah agents videotaped Canadian landmarks in the 1990s and sent the films to their leaders in Lebanon to help select targets should they decide to stage an attack.
''Assuming these guys are agents, it takes you back to the days of the Soviet special operations group, which used to undertake preparations for war-like activities,'' said David Harris, a former chief of strategic planning for CSIS.
The Soviets scouted potential targets, including gas pipelines, in the event they were called upon to conduct sabotage operations against Canada. Mr. Harris said it was disturbing to think that information on Canadian gas facilities could end up in the hands of Hezbollah.
On Oct. 2, 2001, the owner of the Empress facility, ATCO Midstream Ltd., received a letter confirming that the two individuals who toured the plant near the Canada-U.S. border were on an intelligence watchlist and posed a threat.
''I conveyed it to my colleagues in the national intelligence service,'' Al Palmer, director of security operations for the Alberta Solicitor-General, wrote to the owner of the Empress facility in a letter obtained by the Post dated Oct. 2, 2001. ''The result was that these two individuals were well- known agents of a foreign power who are capable of posing a threat to Canada.''
''[Empress plant manager] Mr. Timoruski was instrumental in identifying a previously unknown risk to the industry,'' he said. ''Had it not been for his foresight and attention to detail, we still may not have a grasp on the issue. We now understand the threat and are in a position to address this issue.''
In a telephone interview this week, ATCO president Rick Brouwer confirmed the events, adding the province was satisfied that the company's security measures, tightened after Sept. 11, were sufficient.
Sources say the two Iranians signed in the registry that they were representatives of the National Iranian Gas Company.
The tour for the two Iranians was arranged by Brent Mealey, a senior process engineer with engineering consultants Propak Systems of Airdrie, Alta., who was trying to sign a gas plant contract in Iran at the time. After their names were handed over to the Solicitor-General's staff, Mr. Mealey was also called by the provincial authorities.
''I talked to the guy at the Solicitor-General's office and he just said they were of interest to the CIA. They were being tracked by them,'' he said in a telephone interview yesterday. ''They were only interested in touring Empress. They said they were engineers building a gas plant in Iran and wanted to see similar facilities.''
Propak never got a contract, he added.
''Iran has one of the biggest intelligence services in the whole world,'' he said. ''They [the Solicitor-General] did not warn me against doing business with these people. If they are being tracked by the CIA it is not necessarily about terrorism. It could be about industrial espionage.''
A spokesperson for the Solicitor-General's office said Mr. Palmer was unavailable for comment because of security responsibilities for the G8 summit.
''We are prohibited by law [from giving details], but the individuals were of interest to CSIS and a national security file. That's all we can say,'' said the spokesperson.
The Iranian intelligence service has been using Canada for years to harass pro-democracy activists within the Iranian refugee community and to purchase material for its military. An Iranian agent who came to Canada as a refugee, but was then dispatched to assassinate an Iranian pro-democracy activist in Europe, was deported this month.
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