Iraq's delegate to the 22-member pan-Arab organization Mohsen Khalil told reporters he had conveyed Sabri's request to Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa.

Khalil gave no explanation for an aborted trip that Moussa was planning to Baghdad Tuesday, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Sabri said in his message that the "U.S. administration is intent on carrying out an aggression although Iraq's cooperation with U.N. arms inspectors has made progress," the Iraq diplomat said.

Moussa's trip was announced by the Iraqi government but an Arab League official said it was called off after Bush’s ultimatum.

The Iraqi government and Arab diplomats in Beirut said Moussa's plane had entered Iraqi airspace when Iraq authorities ordered it to turn back, but the League official was adamant Moussa did not leave Cairo.

Earlier Tuesday, the Arab League rejected the U.S. ultimatum to Saddam, dismissing Bush's move as illegal.

"The Arab League cannot accept such a final warning," the Arab League spokesman Hisham Yussef told reporters.

"U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 does not contain a time limit and the world has acknowledged that Iraq was cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors to implement this resolution," he said.

"We regret the U.S. decision to act outside the U.N. Security Council and outside international legality.

"It seems that the United States is intent on ending diplomatic action despite the desire of the entire world which considers that there is a real opportunity for peaceful settlement," he charged.

The spokesman also "voiced regrets for U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's decision to pull out the inspectors" who had been checking Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Bush said in a speech late Monday, March 17, that Saddam and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours, adding: "Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing."

The United States, backed notably by Britain, claims Baghdad has not complied with U.N. Security Council resolutions ordering it to dispose of its weapons of mass destruction.

Individual Arab League members also weighed in against Bush Tuesday, predicting disaster for the region if his attack goes ahead.

A Syrian official spokesman, quoted by the state news agency SANA, said Bush's ultimatum was "in contradiction with the charter, the resolutions and the objectives of the United Nations."

"Any resulting military action will destroy the principles on which international order is based," he warned.

Syria is the only Arab member of the Security Council and has consistently opposed war on Iraq.

In Cairo, some 150 Egyptians burned a U.S. flag and trampled a portrait of Bush in Cairo's downtown Tahreer (Liberation) Square, not far from the U.S. embassy which was under heavy riot police protection.

The demonstrators brandished Iraqi and Palestinian flags, banners proclaiming "no war for oil", and portraits of Bush with the mention "liar and thief."

They also shouted slogans against "cowardly Arab governments" for failing to take decisive action against U.S. war plans.

Several hundred students also staged an anti-war demonstration on the campus of Cairo University's Faculty of Medicine, praising France and Germany for opposing U.S. war schemes.

Public opinion in Egypt is highly mobilized against the United States in its standoff with Iraq, but demonstrations have been tightly monitored by authorities.

In the meantime, the Tuesday Arab newspapers predicted that the war threatened by Washington on Baghdad within hours would mean disaster for the Middle East and blamed Bush for triggering it.

Bush "has decided the date for the aggression against Iraq, but the world will see a human butchery unknown since World War II," Syria's daily Tishrin said.

"The Iraqi people, under sanctions (since 1990) ..., will be the victims of this American war which will be one of the most murderous in history."

Bush, it added, "accepts responsibility for the blood which will flow and the consequences of unprecedented world division."

"It is truly sad that a miracle is now needed to avert a war while in our day and age miracles no longer happen and the people of this war-stricken region must hold their breath and wait for zero-hour," wrote the Jordanian Al-Dustour.

It lamented the "weakness" of Arab governments which had failed to stop war on a fellow Arab and Muslim country.

Newspapers in the Gulf were also caught between grim resignation to a potentially catastrophic war on Iraq and hope for an 11th-hour miracle from Saddam.

"The threat of catastrophe is hanging over the whole region, not just Iraq," the United Arab Emirates daily Al-Khaleej said.

Qatar's Al-Raya also said there was nothing to do but wait for "an unjust war that will have catastrophic consequences for the whole region."