Rasmussen "must provide an explanation about what the country's intelligence services knew about Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction, which were the justification for the war," Unity List spokesman Soeren Soendergaard said.

Denmark was one of Washington's staunchest allies in the US-led war on Iraq, and there have been rising accusations on both sides of the Atlantic that allegations about Baghdad's weapons capability were inflated to provide ammunition for the March 20 invasion.

The call came after Australian intelligence officials revealed that they knew as far back as January of US doubts over reports that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa to make nuclear weapons.

Australian intelligence officials had however not passed the information on to the government.

"The Sydney government was not informed of these doubts. That's why we want to know if Danish intelligence officials in the police and military, who are normally in contact with their Australian counterparts, also omitted to tell the prime minister," Soendergaard told AFP.

He asked Rasmussen to indicate whether Danish intelligence services -- like those in Australia -- "had information before the strike on Iraq that shed doubt on US, British or Danish government claims that it had weapons of mass destruction."

Soendergaard said it was "essential to determine to what point the Liberal-Conservative government was involved in this trickery."

Before the war officials from the Bush administration on several occasions said military force was needed against the regime of Saddam Hussein because Iraq's weapons of massive destruction threatened the security of the United States and its allies.

However, on Wednesday US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Washington did not go to war with Iraq because of new evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Rather, it was "because we saw the existing evidence in a new light through the prism of our experience on September 11," he said, referring to the 2001 terror attacks in the United States that killed some 3,000 people.

"This affair is a big farce, whether or not any weapons are found. The public has been tricked by war-hungry American and British leaders, and their Danish 'echo'," Soendergaard charged.

WAR.WIRE