Patten also supported a plea by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan for a fresh Security Council mandate for the UN to play a role in post-war Iraq, including adequate resources to do its job.

"In my view there's no question that having as much international legitimacy for a post-conflict situation as possible makes sense in everybody's interest," said Patten, who arrived in Australia last week for EU-Australia ministerial talks.

He told commercial television in an interview screened Sunday that there should be as wide as possible belief in the reports of inspectors as possible.

"Obviously it must be a worry that if things are simply found by the coalition which has been fighting the war, people in Arab countries, the Islamic world, will be less inclined to believe it than if it was done by the

"So I think there's an interest for everyone in getting the UN back at some stage to verify anything that's discovered."

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he agreed with Patten on the need for UN arms verification.

"I think it would obviously give more confidence to the international community if the UN was involved with the verification of discoveries of weapons of mass destruction," Downer added.

He said there were some issues to be sorted out by the UN Security Council before the arms inspectors could return to Iraq.

"But over and above that, I don't think there's anybody saying that the UN inspectors should go back in at any time at all.

"I think it's very important that at some point they do return."

Downer said coalition military forces, of which Australia is a part, would formally declare victory within the next few days.

"There's just some tidying up going on in relation to the final proclamation," he said.

"Obviously it has to be absolutely accurate legally. It also has to be a proclamation that strikes the right political tone, if you like, as well. So work is still being done on that."

He said there had been discussions between the United States, Britain and Australia about the exact wording of the proclamation.

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