Chávez wins applause at U.N. after slap at U.S.

UNITED NATIONS — Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez took President Bush to task this week in front of a global summit for waging war in Iraq without U.N. consent and won rousing applause for his critique.

After the U.N. summit, he even suggested the United States is planning to invade his country.

The leftist leader said that fighting the Iraq war without U.N. authorization showed the U.S. did not respect the world body. He recommended moving U.N. headquarters to a country that has more regard for the organization.

"There were never weapons of mass destruction but Iraq was bombed, and over U.N. objections, occupied and continues being occupied," Chávez said. Bush alleged that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction but none have been found, shattering one of his main arguments for going to war.

"That's why we propose to this assembly that the United Nations leave this country, which is not respectful of the very resolutions of this assembly," Chávez said.

Chávez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, suggested moving U.N. headquarters from New York to an international city "outside the sovereignty of any state" and said some have mentioned Jerusalem as one possibility.

But the Venezuelan leader said the new headquarters has to be in the South, home to most developing countries.

Bush, who spoke to the summit's opening session on Wednesday morning, was not in the audience when Chávez spoke. World leaders at the summit had been asked to speak for five minutes but Chávez ran long and when the presiding diplomat passed him a note saying his time was up, he threw it on the floor. He said if Bush could speak for 20 minutes, so could he.

When he finally stopped, he got what observers said was the loudest applause of the summit.

Relations between Chávez and the U.S. have become increasingly strained, though the United States remains the top buyer of Venezuelan oil.

Chávez repeatedly has accused the U.S. government of backing plots against him, and recently alleged the U.S. was preparing to invade his country. Last night, he said he has documentary evidence.

He told ABC's "Nightline" the plan is called "Balboa" and involves aircraft carriers and planes. He said U.S. soldiers recently went to the island of Curaçao, off Venezuela's northwest coast, and described as a "lie" the official U.S. explanation that they visited Curaçao for rest and recreation.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson recently suggested the United States assassinate Chávez because he poses a threat.

Chávez responded that Robertson had clearly "expressed the wish of the elite that govern the United States." Robertson has since apologized.

U.S. officials deny the Venezuelan leader's claims but have expressed concerns about the health of the country's democracy under Chávez, who was first elected in 1998 pledging a social "revolution" for the poor majority.

Bush criticized Venezuela's government earlier Thursday, saying the South American nation had "failed demonstrably" to make a concerted effort to block shipments of illicit narcotics to the United States and Europe last year.

Venezuela could have been subjected to a cutoff of U.S. assistance, but Bush decided to waive the provision because of national-security interests.

In early August, Chávez accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of using its agents in Venezuela for espionage, and said Venezuela was suspending cooperation with the agency. The Bush administration denied the espionage charge.

Chávez, whose country is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, also warned the world is facing an unprecedented energy crisis.

Chávez singled out the United States as the most wasteful country, saying he was shocked when a quarter of all the cars he counted Thursday morning on New York streets had one person in them.

"That's crazy, one person with a huge car ... that is using up gas and polluting the atmosphere," he said at a news conference. "The world cannot tolerate this model of development called the American way of life."