Iraqi journalists gave US Secretary of State Colin Powell a hostile reception in Baghdad on Friday, walking out of his news conference in protest at the killing of two of their colleagues by US troops.
Powell urged US allies to stay the course in Iraq after Spain vowed to pull out troops and South Korea refused to take on a combat role.
"This is not the time to say 'let's stop what we are doing and pull back'," he told the news conference. "This is the time to...deal with this threat to the civilised world and not run and hide and think that it won't come and get us - it will."
About 30 Arab journalists quit the hall in anger at Thursday's shooting of two Iraqis who worked for the Dubai-based satellite television channel Al Arabiya.
"We declare our condemnation of the incident which led to the killing of the two journalists...at the hands of the American forces," said Najim al-Rubaie of Iraq's Addustour daily as Powell and Iraq's US governor Paul Bremer looked on.
Al Arabiya employees say US soldiers fired on a car carrying an Arabiya crew on Thursday evening after another car ran through a checkpoint. Cameraman Ali Abdelaziz was killed and correspondent Ali al-Khatib died in hospital on Friday morning.
After the walkout, Powell said he regretted the deaths of the journalists, but was sure troops would not have killed them on purpose.
Powell, tightly guarded throughout his surprise visit, earlier hailed the war in Iraq after a year of bloodshed, saying it had rid the country of a "horrible dictatorial regime".
He told US soldiers and civilians that Iraq and its neighbours need no longer fear Saddam's chemical weapons - even though US experts have not found any in a year-long hunt.
"We don't have to worry about that any more on this March day, this one year commemoration of the beginning of the war."
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