"Everyone knows that Iraq used weapons of mass destruction against its own people," he told reporters.

"Weapons of mass destruction were used against the Iranians, thousands of Kurds were killed, this is not disputable."

"What remains to be seen is if they were destroyed or not before the US-led military intervention," he added.

When asked if he still believed that Iraq had banned weapons, Durao Barroso said: "I am absolutely convinced, absolutely convinced."

The United States, Britain and Australia are all facing calls for probes of the intelligence behind their claim that Iraq possessed illegal weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq's alleged illegal arsenal of banned weapons was a leading reason quoted by the three governments for invading the country, and was cited by Durao Barroso as his justification for his strong support for the military strike against Baghdad.

But coalition forces have so failed to find any trace of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a full eight weeks after Saddam Hussein's overthrow even though they have already visted some 300 sites across the country.

Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said in an interview published in Portuguese news weekly Visao on Thursday that none of the banned arms have been found so far because Iraq was probably free of weapons of mass destruction before the war.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld meanwhile said last week Hussein may have destroyed his weapons aresenal before the war.

Centre-right Durao Barroso allowed Washington to use an air base in Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores islands during the war, but stopped short of contributing troops to the conflict due to opposition from Socialist President Jorge Sampaio who opposed the war.

The Iraqi airforce in 1988 unleashed an unprecedented chemical weapons assualt in the town of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan which killed 5,000 civilians.

Iraq is also accused of using weapons of mass destruction during its bloody 1980-88 war with its neighbour Iran.

But Blix said in his latest quarterly report, which he will formally present to the UN Security Council on Thursday, that UN inspectors had found no evidence that Iraq had resumed production of weapons which were banned under UN sanctions after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

WAR.WIRE