The Iraqi leadership continues to maintain that the terrorist actions were independent of Iraqi actions over the last several years to develop and maintain a chemical and biological weapons program. They deny any involvement, both present and past, with the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the attacks in Houston and Tel Aviv. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has repeatedly gone on the record as saying that these attacks were prearranged by the Israelis and US officials in order to sanction attacks against Iraq and that the US should be held accountable for any further attacks. There have also been reports that the UN arms inspectors in Iraq have been detained and are being escorted to the Jordanian border. The UN has been notified that their inspection teams are being thrown out of the country for spying and that any further actions against Iraq would result in Asevere repercussions against the West.
Anti-missile batteries in Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are all on heightened alert as a number of Iraqi Scud missiles have gone unaccounted for and security forces in all of the countries ringing Iraq are on alert as all had supported the US- and Israeli-led resolution to denounce the Iraqi involvement in the attacks.
Baghdad has been under wartime conditions since the attacks with blackouts and curfews keeping the population indoors. President Hussein has been reported to be sleeping in different locations every night in an attempt to prevent assassination teams from finding him. Iraq's elite Republican Guard has been alerted and has ringed Baghdad to prevent violence in the capital city.
This crisis has put the stock markets into a tumble as the Dow Industrials has lost 15 percent in value in the days after the attack but has recovered some as investors rally around the president and world opinion continues to denounce Iraq. Oil prices have risen sharply as actions in the Middle East could seriously jeopardize the flow of oil and petroleum products to the West. Strategic reserves of petroleum in the US have been enlarged in anticipation of a prolonged crisis so as to stabilize oil and gas prices in the US but Japan has suffered from a tremendous markup on oil prices which threaten the modest economic recovery there.
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