United Nations: The 12,000 page report on its weapons of mass destruction that Iraq plans to deliver on December 7, a day ahead of the deadline set by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), could take weeks to translate and analyse, officials at world body said.

The report is expected to be handed over the UNSC members in the original form and analysts said the United States would do its own analysis.

Washington has not so far revealed much to the UN weapons inspectors on its own intelligence assessment about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Analysts say that the reason is that Washington first wants Iraq to make declaration and then check its own information to see if it can pick some holes.

The world body would need to check the information against its own database which has some one million pages and that would be a time-consuming process.

It is yet unclear how the US would handle the situation as it does not have much time if it plans to take military action to "disarm Saddam".

Baghdad plans to hand deliver the report at UN headquarters in New York, weapons inspectors' offices in Cyprus and to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

The Iraqi government has so far maintained that it has no weapons of mass destruction, a position that the US has challenged.

Iraq says the declaration itself would be around 4,000 pages with up to 8,000 pages of supporting documents.

The bottom line, analysts say, would be whether Iraq says that it has weapons of mass destruction or not. If it denies that, the Security Council could declare Baghdad in "material breach" which could invite military action.

PTI