A war of words broke out last night after a furious Des Browne issued a personal challenge to Alex Salmond to visit British troops in Iraq after the First Minister was accused of undermining morale.

Comments Mr Salmond made about Scots soldiers being "kicked in the teeth" by the Westminster government were labelled "outrageous" by his Labour opponents.

On the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion, Mr Salmond told BBC Scotland: "I don't believe, incidentally, the views of the Scots squaddies are any different from the Scots population. They do their job because they are professionals and they do it bravely and completely."

He then said: "They get kicked in the teeth when they are in Iraq by their regiments being wound up. They get treated disgracefully by the government - across a range of ways - which has broken the military covenant."

Last night, the First Minister's statement was labelled a disgrace by his political opponents, with the suggestion Mr Salmond was getting "too big for his boots". They called on him to withdraw his remarks.

But Mr Salmond insisted it was Mr Browne who should be apologising for being "part of the disgraceful decision five years ago to drag us into an illegal war on a false prospectus" and for "breaking the military covenant by scrapping the historic Scottish regiments".

The FM said his government supported service personnel, who were doing the job they were ordered to do with extraordinary professionalism and courage. "They fight for each other and for their regiment. The issue is why they were sent into danger in the first place."

Mr Browne, the Secretary of State for Defence and Scotland, was said to be enraged by Mr Salmond's "nonsense". He said: "On every occasion I have been in Iraq I have met Scottish soldiers across the ranks and they are all extremely proud of the work they have done in liberating Iraq from tyranny, training Iraqi forces and providing the Iraqi people with security from some of the most vicious terrorists in the world. It is rubbish to claim soldiers are gagged. Journalists have been embedded with our forces for the last five years and have been free to report what our people say to them."

He added: "It is revealing, to my knowledge, no SNP MPs or MSPs have been out to visit our troops. No doubt they fear having to explain to ordinary Iraqis why, five years on, the SNP still regret the toppling of the tyrant who oppressed them."

For the Scottish Conservatives, Murdo Fraser MSP, their deputy leader, claimed Mr Salmond was "playing a dangerous game" in potentially undermining troop morale.

At present, Scotland has about 700 troops in Iraq from the Scots Guards and the Royal Scottish Borderers. In the next few weeks some 1400 will head to Afghanistan.

Keith Brown, SNP MSP for Ochil and an ex-Marine who served in the Falklands War, decried Labour and the Tories for ganging up on the First Minister, saying they should "be ashamed of themselves for once again uniting to defend the indefensible decision to go to war in Iraq".

Elsewhere another row erupted over defence policy and the SNP.

David Cairns, the Scotland Office Minister launched a broadside, suggesting the Nationalists' policy of independence would leave Scotland without proper defences.

Speaking in Edinburgh to the SBAC trade association, which represents the aerospace, defence, space and naval sectors in Scotland, the Inverclyde MP said the end of the Union would "decimate" Scotland's defence industry, which sustained more than 30,000 jobs.

He added most Scots rejected the SNP's "parochial vision of a Scotland left vulnerable in a modern world, where national security and confidence is a poor second to an absurd ideological preoccupation with cutting Scotland off from the rest of the international community".

Angus Robertson, the SNP's leader at Westminster, described Mr Cairns's words as "scaremongering nonsense".

The Moray MP said: "The reality under Labour and London government is that Scotland has lost 4500 defence jobs in Scotland; David Cairns should be apologising for that. An independent Scotland will support a vibrant defence sector based on conventional force just like other small and successful European nations."

Meantime, a poll by the Army Families Federation of 468 Army spouses found 46% would prefer their husband or wife to leave the forces while 52% said they would not.