US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday he had been taken aback by the depth of Arab anger over recent air strikes on Iraq but offered no apologies for them and insisted that Saddam Hussein posed a deadly threat to the Middle East.
"The reaction was more than I expected," Powell said here after listening on Saturday in Cairo to Egyptian complaints about February 16 strikes on military targets around Baghdad.
"We probably could have done a better job of coordination, but I have no apologies for it," Powell said at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon.
"We will do what is necessary to protect our pilots" patrolling the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, he said.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Mussa said Saturday that Egypt did not see Baghdad as a threat to itself, but Powell urged a rethink of that position which is also held by many of Washington's other Arab allies.
He noted the release on Saturday of a German intelligence report that estimated Iraq could produce a nuclear weapon within three years, saying that underscored the danger Saddam Hussein posed to the region.,
"I think this just reinforces another one of the messages I am carrying throughout the region -- that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime is a dangerous regime," Powell said, directing his comments to the Arab world.
"It seems to me it should reinforce to all the peoples of the region, especially my Arab friends in the region, that we have to enforce the UN resolutions that Saddam Hussein agreed to at the end of the Gulf War," he said.
"I think this German report...will help make the case to the people of the region that Saddam Hussein must be contained until he comes to his senses.
"We have to make sure that we do everything we can to constrain him, to get inspectors back in under the terms of the UN resolutions," Powell said.