Chief U.N. arms inspectors hold a second round of showdown talks with Iraq on Monday, warning Baghdad that time was running out to provide full cooperation despite promises of more information on some issues. Washington on Sunday issued one of its clearest warnings yet to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that non-cooperation with U.N. inspectors could be deemed a trigger for a war in the absence of a "smoking gun" or hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction -- and that a decision could be just weeks away.

"The test is, is Saddam Hussein cooperating?" Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Fox TV. "He's not doing that."

Rumsfeld, presiding over a huge U.S. military build-up of warplanes, ships and tens of thousands of troops in the oil-rich Gulf region, said a final conclusion on Iraqi cooperation could be made "in a matter of weeks, not in months or years."

Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei quickly got down to business after flying into Baghdad on Sunday on a last-ditch mission to hammer home a message to Iraq: This is a final chance to come clean on any banned weapons or face a possible U.S.-led war.

The U.N.'s top arms inspectors, who say there are big gaps in Baghdad's arms declarations, swept up a palm-fringed road in a motorcade to Iraq's Foreign Ministry to demand quick answers before they report to the United Nations Security Council on January 27 on Iraqi compliance.

"I think (the Iraqis) have said that there are still certain areas they are ready to provide more information. I think that in other areas they said they are ready to reconsider their position," ElBaradei said in an interview with Reuters.

"What we tried to do today at this meeting is to impress on the Iraqi authorities that the time is running out," ElBaradei said after the talks with Saddam's scientific adviser Amir al-Saadi and General Hussam Mohammad Amin, head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate.

MORE WARHEADS FOUND

Blix voiced fresh frustration with Iraq after it disclosed finding four empty chemical warheads, which it said, had been overlooked in its arms dossier presented to the United Nations last December.
Last week U.N. inspectors found documents at an Iraqi scientist's home they said related to missiles and nuclear weapons and a cache of empty chemical warheads.

Blix said he would not characterize the finds as "smoking guns" but they were serious matters.
Senior officials in President Bush's administration put Saddam on notice that the clock was ticking toward decision day, brushing aside anti-war protests by hundreds of thousands of people across the world at the weekend.

U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told NBC television: "Clearly the 27th is an important date... (It) probably marks the start of a last phase of determining whether the Iraqis have fully complied."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Washington's staunchest ally over Iraq, is due to meet President Bush four days after the inspectors' report to U.N. Security Council.

Both leaders have said they reserve the right to go to war against Iraq with or without a new U.N. resolution. Britain is also deploying large forces to the Gulf region.

Saddam remained defiant of U.S. and British war threats.

"After putting our faith in God, victory is absolutely assured. We don't see it on the horizon, rather it is in our grasp and inside our chests," he told a group of army officers.

CHIRAC CRITICAL

"If the United States decide to intervene alone, we will have to say that that will happen outside of the international community," French President Jacques Chirac told the daily Le Figaro newspaper in an interview to be published on Monday.

PHOTO CAPTION

Chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix asks a crowd of journalists to quiet down and stop pushing forward as he and chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei speak in front of the al-Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad after arriving in Iraq for talks with officials Sunday, Jan. 19, 2003. (AP Photo/David Guttenf