WASHINGTON (CNN) --With the top U.N. weapons inspectors due to report to the Security Council in four days, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice asserted Thursday that Iraq "is still treating inspections as a game" and "it should know that time is running out."

In an op-ed piece in The New York Times, Rice said Iraq is "failing in spectacular fashion. By both its actions and its inactions, Iraq is proving not that it is a nation bent on disarmament, but that it is a nation with something to hide."

Rice said there are many questions about Iraq's weapons programs and "it is Iraq's obligation to provide answers." She said Iraq's weapons declaration "amounts to a 12,200-page lie" and "resorts to unabashed plagiarism."

"Far from informing, the declaration is intended to cloud and confuse the true picture of Iraq's arsenal. It is a reflection of the regime's well-earned reputation for dishonesty and constitutes a material breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, which set up the current inspections program."

Meanwhile, a group of six countries -- including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran -- planned to issue a declaration Thursday demanding that Iraq comply with the inspections in exchange for their help in avoiding a military conflict with the United States.

Chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei are expected to present a progress report to the Security Council on Monday.

U.N. officials have stressed that the report will be an update, not a conclusive determination about any Iraqi weapons programs. Still, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has told Security Council members that "difficult choices" will follow the report.

On Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed French and German insistence that "everything must be done to avoid war" with Iraq, saying most European countries stand with the United States in its campaign to force Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to disarm.

"Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem," said Rumsfeld, a former NATO ambassador. "But you look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They're not with France and Germany on this; they're with the United States."

Germany and France represent "old Europe," Rumsfeld said, and NATO's expansion in recent years means "the center of gravity is shifting to the east."

French officials reacted angrily Thursday to Rumsfeld's comments. An influential former labor minister says the statements show "a certain arrogance of the United States," and France's ecology minister stopped short of characterizing Rumsfeld -- saying the word would be too offensive to publish, The Associated Press reported.

French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Wednesday in Paris they were not convinced a war with Iraq was necessary while U.N. arms inspectors were still searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction.

"Any decision belongs to the Security Council and the Security Council alone, which will address the issue after having examined the latest inspectors' report," Chirac said. "Secondly, as far as we're concerned, war always means failure."

France holds a veto on the Security Council as one of its five permanent members, while Germany is a key NATO ally and will hold the council's rotating presidency in February.