MPs and officials rallied around the Iraqi president, insisting he would never heed Bush's early Thursday deadline to quit or face invasion, and pledging to shed their blood to defend the man who has led them since 1979.

"History will recall how the people of Iraq, under the glorious leadership of Saddam Hussein, inflicted a lesson on the worthless," MPs said in a unanimous declaration at an emergency session of parliament in Baghdad.

"Saddam Hussein is the guarantor of our future," they said. "The defeat of the evil aggressors will serve as an example."

The deputies also sent Saddam a letter saying they were ready to become "martyrs" to defend the nation. Most of Iraq's 250 MPs were in attendance.

With more than 250,000 US and British troops on the outskirts of Iraq, along with a massive naval armada and hundreds of warplanes, Bush has given Saddam and his two sons until early Thursday to flee or be attacked.

"This can never happen," parliament speaker Saadun Hammadi said, ruling out exile. "He is at his best. He will fight and guide our country to victory."

Hammadi told the packed parliament: "We reject and condemn this insolence and this aggression ... Iraq cannot accept dictated orders, and even less so coming from the US administration."

Several deputies read poems in praise of Saddam while others chanted: "Iraq is Saddam and Saddam is Iraq," and: "We will not abandon Iraq or Saddam."

Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf said Washington was deceiving US soldiers and officers, and that any invasion of Iraq meant sending them to their death.

"They are lying to their soldiers and officers by telling them that an aggression against Iraq would be a picnic ... but they are (sending them to) definite death," Sahhaf told reporters.

"We call on the soldiers and officers to pay attention," he said. "All the country is completely prepared to foil any stupid aggression."

The minister also denounced the decision by the United States and Britain not to attend a UN Security Council meeting later Wednesday to discuss the Iraq standoff.

Ministers from seven Council members -- Angola, Cameroon, France, Germany, Guinea and Russia -- were expected to be present, but not from the United States and Britain.

"Their absence is the natural development of the isolation witnessed in the summit at the Azores islands," Sahhaf said.

Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar met in the Azores Sunday for a lightning summit to make a final appeal to the international community to support an Iraq war.

Washington says it has the support of a "coalition of the willing" of 45 nations, although 15 of them refuse to be named publicly.

The White House announced Tuesday that US forces would invade even if Saddam stands down, in order to search for banned weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam, whose regime has been under crippling UN sanctions since it invaded Kuwait in August 1990, says Iraq no longer has any such weapons.

The Iraqi leader has rejected the ultimatum as "despicable" and vowed any war would be "the last battle of aggression undertaken by America against the Arabs."

State television has since Tuesday been showing popular demonstrations in support of Saddam, which it said were being held across the country as Iraq braces for a second US-led war since 1991.

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