Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of the U.S. government, Wednesday called President Bush a “cowboy” who had failed to manage the Hurricane Katrina disaster and evacuate victims.
“That government had no evacuation plan, it is incredible, the first power in the world that is so involved in Iraq ... and left its own population adrift,” Chavez said in a cabinet meeting broadcast live on television.
His remarks came as U.S. authorities evacuated thousands of people from New Orleans and after Bush said it would take years to recover from flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina.
The death toll Wednesday reached at least 200 in what Bush called the nation’s worst natural disaster.
“That man, the king of vacations ... the king of vacations in his ranch said nothing but, you have to flee, and didn’t say how ... that cowboy, the cowboy mentality,” said Chavez, chuckling in a reference to Bush without naming him directly.
Chavez, an outspoken populist who calls Cuba’s Fidel Castro an ally, often lambastes what he calls Washington’s failed imperialist policies. He says the Bush administration is trying to assassinate him and calls the U.S. president “Mr. Danger.”
The two governments frequently clash though the United States is the top oil client of Venezuela, the world’s No. 5 crude exporter. Washington portrays Chavez as a menace who uses his nation’s oil wealth to fund anti-democratic groups.
The Venezuelan president, applauded by supporters for his self-proclaimed socialist revolution to fight poverty, has offered to send cheap fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers to the disaster area.
Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA has offered $1 million from its U.S.-based refinery unit Citgo for relief efforts.
