BAGHDAD, Iraq - After failing to win support for an oil embargo against the United States and other allies of Israel, the Iraqi Cabinet voted Sunday to resume oil exports beginning midnight on Tuesday, national television reported.

        In a statement broadcast on the state-run service, the Cabinet said its April 8 decision to suspend oil exports for 30 days “did not find a response from Arab oil-producing brothers to take similar measures so that it would succeed.”

        President Saddam Hussein presided over the Cabinet meeting, television reported.

        Referring to Iraq's unilateral suspension of oil exports, the Cabinet statement added: “Suffice that we expressed the conscience of the (Arab) nation.”

        The television quoted Saddam as saying during that meeting: “We consider that the Palestinian stand has triumphed, thanks to the determination of the heroic Palestinian people.”

        Saddam announced the suspension as a move to press the United States and other allies of Israel to put pressure on the Israeli government.

        Saddam followed up the suspension by calling on April 22 for all Arab oil-producers to halt sales to the United States and Israel.

        However, other oil-producers did not heed his call. Saudi Arabia, the No. 1 exporter of oil to the United States, publicly rejected Iraq's call to use the so-called “oil weapon.” Another major producer, Kuwait, also rejected it.

        Even Iran, which had suggested cutting oil exports before Iraq did, failed to reduce its own exports.

        In late April, Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Mohammed Rashid said the impact of Iraq's suspension had been “quite good,” but “not as good as we would have liked.”

        Iraq, which has a daily production capacity of 2.3 million barrels, exports about 1.8 million barrels a day under the supervision of the United Nations. The world body has maintained sanctions on Iraq since it invaded Kuwait in 1990.

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