LONDON - Independent verification of any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction may not fall to UN inspectors but rather to a country which is not part of the Iraq war coalition, Britain's Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said Thursday.

"We have always said it would be advantageous, after troops have gone in, as they begin the process of uncovering weapons of mass destruction, that there needs to be an independent verification," Hoon told BBC radio.

"I am certainly saying that could be through the United Nations. I am equally saying it could be through some other objective source of information provided by another country not part of the coalition," Hoon said.

"We've always said there should be an independent element, we've not necessarily specified that that should be the United Nations," he added.

"There could be other countries who could identify, for example as a result of chemical analysis, particular chemicals, precursors for nerve agents or gas... There are a number of countries who have appropriate laboratories facilities who would be prepared to do the job."

Hoon acknowledged that it could take "some time" to uncover the weapons as he said there had been extensive efforts by the Iraqi regime before the war to hide them from UN inspectors.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday said the search for weapons of mass destruction needed some sort of independent verification, but did not specify who should be responsible for the task.

"I've no doubt at all that we need some independent verification of that process. Exactly how that is done, as I have said before, should be discussed with the United Nations and with other key key allies," Blair said.

No Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have yet been unearthed. The US and Britain claimed Iraq's alleged possession of such arms as the principal justification for the war against Saddam's regime.

On Monday Marc Grossman, US under secretary of state for political affairs, said that it was "hardly realistic" to let UN inspectors go back into Iraq.

Britain was the United States' chief ally in the March 20 invasion of Iraq, which followed a renewed attempt by UN arms inspectors to determine the scope of deposed leader Saddam Hussein's arsenals.

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