Venezuelan Leader Blames Bush for Iraq Violence

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez blamed President Bush on Tuesday for violence in Iraq and sent a message of support to Iraqis who he said were battling the U.S. “imperialist aggressor.”

In one of his fiercest attacks against Bush, Chavez once again accused Washington of trying to end his rule in Venezuela, a leading supplier of oil to the United States.

He spoke to thousands of cheering supporters in Caracas on the anniversary of a 2002 coup that briefly ousted him and which he said was “made in the White House.” Washington has denied any involvement.

The Venezuelan leader said the U.S. government had seized the “excuse” of its international campaign against terrorism after Sept. 11 to “declare war on the world.”

Chavez spoke as Bush pledged at a news conference in Washington to keep U.S. troops in Iraq as long as necessary.

Chavez said a surge in fighting between U.S. troops and Iraqi insurgents, the bloodiest combat since Saddam Hussein’s fall, was shedding “innocent blood,” including children’s.

“Whose fault is the violence in Iraq? Is it Saddam Hussein’s, the Muslim fundamentalists’? No. The fault of all these deaths has a name: George W. Bush.

“From Latin America, from Venezuela, we send out our heart to our brothers the Iraqi people, and the Arab peoples ... who are fighting the battle against the imperialist aggressor.”

The populist Venezuelan’s comments seemed certain to further strain ties with Washington as Chavez resists a domestic campaign to hold a referendum on his rule.

Chavez, who was elected in 1998, has condemned the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and opposes Washington’s plan for an Americas-wide free-trade zone as an “imperialist” plot to extend its economic domination.

U.S. officials have criticized Chavez’s alliance with Cuba’s Communist president, Fidel Castro. Chavez describes his government as a “revolution” aimed at using Venezuela’s oil wealth to help the poor.

“Up in Washington, they say that Fidel Castro and I are the destabilizers of the continent, the bad boys,” he said. “They are the bad boys, the big destabilizers, not just of the continent, but of the whole planet.”

U.S. officials have dismissed Chavez’s anti-U.S. rhetoric as an attempt to distract attention from the opposition bid to try to vote him out this year through a referendum.

Chavez said: “I’ll make a bet with Mr. Bush. Let’s see who lasts longer, he in the White House or me here.”