US and Israeli satellites have picked up large convoys of trucks leaving the Taji Single Cell Protein Plant, 6 miles northwest of Baghdad. The destination: The Zagros Mountains - 12,000 to 15,000 feet high and nearly impassable. The convoys stop at two sites 20 to 30 kilometers inside the Iranian border in Kermanshah Province near the suburbs of Khorram-Abad and the other in the Harour Hills in the Khorram Abad region.... So clearly, convoys of trucks leaving Taji would be transporting WMD weapons or the equipment to make WMD weapons. Saddam would like to keep this state of the art WMD factory intact. The two destination sites in the Zagros are tunnels built in the mid-1970's by the Shah of Iran. After his fall in 1979 when Jimmy Carter abandoned him, a Revolutionary Guard (Pazdaran) force was permanently stationed at the tunnels site. In early 1998 the tunnels were modernized and greatly strengthened against air attacks. DEBKAfile reports: Irans ulterior motive in providing safekeeping for Saddams WMD resources is simple. According to our intelligence sources, Iran commands nothing nearly as advanced as Iraq in the way of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons-making equipment. Helping Saddam will lend Irans experts free access to Iraqs state of the art equipment and a chance to copy and assimilate technology that cost Iraq billions of dollars to develop.
Jonathan