A spokesman for the United Nations inspections team (Unmovic) told BBC News Online that inspectors were carrying out a professional and objective job in Iraq.

The victory ... of the people of Iraq is at hand Saddam Hussein

Click here to read excerpts of Saddam's speech

"We are there working on behalf of the Security Council, on behalf of the United Nations," said spokesman Ewen Buchanan.

"If we found anyone violating that arrangement then we would fire them," he said.

The United States has described the Iraqi leader's comments as "unfortunate" and has said the inspectors' work must go on.

Inspections continued at four sites on Monday.

'Strong and direct criticism'

President Saddam denounced the work of the teams sent to monitor Iraq's compliance with demands to disarm, saying they were exceeding their mandate.

The BBC's Caroline Hawley says the strong and direct criticism of the UN inspectors by the president is significant.

But it remains unclear if Iraq will stop co-operating with the scrutiny of its suspected weapons sites, which resumed in November with a threat of "serious consequences" from the UN if it did not do so.

The Iraqi leader charged: "Instead of searching for so-called weapons of mass destruction to reveal the lies of liars... the inspection teams became interested in compiling lists of Iraqi scientists, ask workers questions that are not what they seem and gather information about army camps and legitimate military production.

"These things, or most of them, are pure intelligence work," he said in a television broadcast to mark Army Day.

But Mr Buchanan said that the Security Council specifically granted inspectors the authority to compile such lists.

"I do not believe the Iraqis have brought any specific allegations," he said.

He said if there were specific complaints, they would be investigated and any guilty parties would be "booted out".

Military build-up

The Iraqi president said Iraq had prepared for a possible attack led by the United States and predicted victory.

He described threats by US President George W Bush to disarm Iraq by force as the "hiss of snakes and bark of dogs."