LONDON -- The United States will not act unilaterally if Iraq fails to honestly declare its weapons of mass destruction, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Tuesday.

Washington is "under no illusions" that it could tackle the Iraq question unilaterally, he told BBC radio during a visit to London, adding that one way or another the United States would act "with as many coalition partners as we can find" if Iraq failed to disarm.

The UN Security Council has set a deadline of this Sunday for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to fully declare any weapons of mass destruction, as UN inspectors continue to scour his country.

"If it turns out on December 8 that he (Saddam) is lying, then we have a collective problem. We have to come up with a collective response," Wolfowitz said.

"Obviously the bigger the coalition the better," said Wolfowitz, one of the most outspoken "hawks" in the Bush administration on Iraq, AFP reported. In an apparent reference to France and Germany, he added: "It's also important, in putting that coalition together, for people -- sort of laggards, I might say -- to understand that the rest of us are really determined."

Wolfowitz was in the British capital en route to Ankara to discuss the Iraqi question with Turkey's new Islamist-based, pro-Western government.