(2003-12-19) -- Just hours after the announcement that Libya has offered to give up its weapons of mass destruction program and submit to immediate, unconditional inspections, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Libya must be given more time to make the decision to abandon WMD.

"You can't just announce this all at once," said Mr. Annan. "Libya should invest the time to build a true multilateral coalition before inspections can even be contemplated. This is a 12-year process at minimum."

In related news, Democrat presidential candidate Howard Dean said that Libya would have destroyed its WMD program much sooner if the United States had not invaded Iraq.

"America will not be safer when Libyan WMD are destroyed," said Mr. Dean.