BAGHDAD, March 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - As peace looks slimmer than ever, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein spurned Tuesday, March 18, the U.S. 48-hour ultimatum to leave the country with his two sons or face invasion and pledged victory over the United States in "Iraq's last battle."

This came during a joint meeting of the ruling Baath Party and the decision-making body, the Revolution Command Council, chaired by Saddam, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Saddam himself vowed victory over the United States in his first response to President George W. Bush's deadline which expires Thursday, March 20.

Saddam’s elder son Uday also rubbished the American ultimatum to quit Iraq, his office said in a statement.

"This proposition was made by an inept individual. We will go one better by calling for Bush to leave power with his family," Uday said, according to the statement.

"Any aggression against Iraq will make them (the Americans) regret their tragic fate and the wives and mothers of the Americans who fight us will cry tears of blood. They should not think themselves safe anywhere in Iraq or abroad."

Iraq state television added that an emergency session of the Iraqi national assembly had been called for Wednesday, March 19, and that nationwide rallies in support for Saddam would be held later Tuesday.

Even before Bush's statement, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri dismissed an American proposal that the crisis could end with Saddam going into exile, saying: "The only option (to avoid war) is the departure of the number one warmonger in the world, George W. Bush.”

Sabri further hit out at "the failing President Bush who made his country a joke in the world and isolated his administration and made the United States public enemy number one."

Inspectors Arrive In Cyprus

U.N. weapons inspectors and their support staff were back at their rear base in Cyprus on Tuesday.

A total of 56 experts and 80 support staff from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were aboard the Boeing 727 which took off from Baghdad's Saddam International Airport.

U.N. sources said a second flight, a slower Hercules C130 transport, would follow.

"I think that we have done our task. It's unfortunate that we have to leave now. Our job is unfinished but I think all the inspectors and support staff have done their best," spokesman Hiro Ueki told reporters at the airport.

Other U.N. personnel, including humanitarian staff, were due to leave in the course of the day ahead of the anticipated U.S.-led military campaign, some by road to Syria and Jordan.

The 200-odd U.N. staffers on their way out include personnel who ran the "oil-for-food" program that allowed Iraq to sell oil under U.N. supervision to buy food and medicines for its sanctions-stricken people.

Food rations are distributed to 16 million Iraqis under the program, which will now be suspended.

Announcing the withdrawal of U.N. personnel on Monday, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that without observers to monitor Iraq's exports and imports, it was not possible to manage the six-year-old oil-for-food program.

One of the officials running the program said he and many other U.N. staffers were deeply frustrated for leaving Baghdad.