KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has announced he's stopping his country's oil exports for at least a month. He's says he's doing it to protest the Israeli military offensive in the West Bank and to show support for the Palestinians. CNN's Jane Arraf has the details.</s>JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Iraq is immediately halting all U.N. approved oil exports. That was the dramatic and surprise message from President Saddam Hussein in a televised speech to the Iraqi and the Palestinian people. The Iraqi president said because of escalating violence in West Bank of Gaza and Israeli attacks on Palestinian's, Iraq was taking this action unilaterally to send a message to what we called the Zine-entity (ph) and to the United States, which has backed, he says, the Israel actions. Starting today all oil exports from the Turkish pipeline from Iraqi ports through the Gulf are halting. That means stop of about 1.5 million barrels of oil a day, most of it destined through middlemen to the United States for oil refineries there. Now impact of that also remains to be seen here since that's the oil money that used to buy food and medicine and other humanitarian supplies. U.N. financial, in past, have said that Iraq has stockpiled food and medicine and other supplies and could hold out a while longer but if this does last past the 30 day point, that Iraqi president has threatened that we could see the country running out of vital supplies. Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.</s>PHILLIPS: Well the OPEC oil cartel has released a statement in response to Saddam Hussein's decisions. OPEC does not support Iraq's oil embargo as this goes against the organization's objective, which is to bring about stability and harmony to the oil market. OPEC would like to distance itself from the political decisions of member countries. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Iraq Stopping Oil Exports for a Month