Asked about a new audio tape aired by an Arabic television station on Sunday that was purported to be by Saddam, Bremer said the toppled leader had no support in Iraq except among his "band of thugs."

"This is a voice from the wilderness here. This is a man who is followed by a small band of murderers and they have no vision for the future of Iraq. They have a vision of the past, a past of violence and corruption," Bremer said in an interview with NBC's "Today" show.

He added: "He is around and we need to capture or kill him but he has no future here."

The United States has offered a $25 million reward for the capture of Saddam or proof of his death but U.S. troops have not yet caught him.

In Sunday's tape, Saddam purportedly called on Iraqis to wage holy war against occupying forces and warned of more deaths for U.S.-led troops.

President Bush described the new tape as "the same old propaganda" and reiterated on Sunday that the United States would stay in Iraq until the job was done.

A CIA spokesman said the agency would examine the latest tape to determine its authenticity, a process that usually takes a couple of days. An unnamed CIA official said in September a previous such tape was "probably" the voice of Saddam Hussein.

TRANSFER OF POWER TO IRAQIS

Bremer, speaking from Baghdad, said Iraq was a very dangerous place but that U.S. troops would stay the course.

"I don't think there is any secret to the fact that we have a war on terrorism going on here. We have probably hundreds of professional terrorists in this country now. We are in the front line. It is dangerous and we have also got people like Saddam's followers trying to kill our soldiers," he said.

U.S. forces are under daily attack in Iraq and since May 1, when Bush declared major conflict over, at least 160 U.S. soldiers have been killed by hostile fire.

Military commanders and U.S. intelligence officials have said the resistance forces number about 5,000, and described them as a combination of Saddam loyalists, criminals paid by those loyalists, Islamic militants from outside Iraq, and isolated Shiite radicals.

Bremer said the United States had speeded up the transfer of power to the Iraqis. "It is tactically a good way to go forward. We would have preferred to do it a different way but it would have taken too long."

Pressed whether the United States was taking too many short cuts in a bid to get out of Iraq, Bremer responded: "It is certainly not cut and run."

He added: "We will stay here until the job is done and until we have a democratic, stable Iraq."