U.S. strikes back against Venezuela

WASHINGTON — The United States expelled a senior Venezuelan diplomat Friday, calling the move a response to the expulsion of a U.S. naval attaché from Caracas a day earlier.

The State Department announced that Jenny Figueredo Frias, a minister counselor described as chief of staff at the Venezuelan Embassy, had been declared persona non grata and given 72 hours to leave the United States.

"We don't like to get into tit-for-tat games like this with the Venezuelan government," department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "but they initiated this, and we were forced to respond."

As a senior embassy figure, Figueredo ranks higher than the U.S. naval attaché, Cmdr. John Correa, who was ordered out of Venezuela on Thursday. Her expulsion carried no allegation of improper behavior, in contrast to Venezuela's accusation that Correa was in league with some Venezuelan military officers and helped to pass state secrets to the Pentagon.

The Venezuelan Embassy noted these differences and said the cases of Figueredo and Correa were "simply not comparable." Although the U.S. action was "not unexpected," the Venezuelan statement said, it could not be justified as "diplomatic reciprocity."

The twin expulsions marked the latest downturn in an increasingly hostile relationship between the Bush administration and the leftist government of President Hugo Chávez.

Washington officials have made no secret of their concerns about the social revolution Chávez is advocating in Venezuela and his promoting political change elsewhere.

In especially sharp language this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld alluded to Adolf Hitler while speaking of Chávez and Bolivia's new president, Evo Morales, at an appearance in Washington.

"I mean, we've got Chávez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money," Rumsfeld said. "He's a person who was elected legally — just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally — and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others."

Jose Vicente Rangel, Venezuela's vice president, fired back Friday by calling President Bush "the North American Hitler." Rangel compared Bush's administration to that of the Third Reich, accusing Vice President Dick Cheney of "trafficking in war" and calling Rumsfeld a "delinquent" and an "arms dealer."

Chávez, meanwhile, was celebrated Friday in Havana as an anti-imperialist worthy of the highest honors.

Castro's government said 200,000 Cubans would crowd Revolution Plaza for Friday night's ceremony to grant Chávez UNESCO's 2005 José Martí International Prize.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.