Venezuela legislative National Assembly says 9/11 self-inflicted'

Thu, Nov. 09, 2006

VENEZUELA

Chávez attacks Bush as a 'genocidal' leader

Venezuela's president continued his criticism of President Bush after the
pro-Chávez legislature declared that the 9/11 attacks were
`self-inflicted.'

BY PHIL GUNSON

Special to The Miami Herald

CARACAS - When Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez called President
Bush ''the devil'' in a U.N. speech in September, many thought his
''anti-imperialist'' rhetoric had reached rock bottom.

But fresh depths have since been plumbed. The Venezuelan government, to
judge from recent events, officially regards Bush as a genocidal Nazi who
arranged the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to justify aggression
against other nations.

In a speech Tuesday, Chávez criticized the decision of an Iraqi court to
sentence former dictator Saddam Hussein to the death penalty. ''If
sentencing is to be done,'' Chávez said, ``the first one to be given the
most severe sentence this planet has to offer should be the president of
the United States, if we're talking about genocidal presidents.''

RESOLUTION ON 9/11

His comments, which were fairly typical of his recent attacks on Bush,
came shortly after the publication of a resolution by Venezuela's
legislative National Assembly describing the 9/11 attacks as
''self-inflicted'' and after an exhibition at the Foreign Ministry
building in Caracas in which Bush was portrayed as a Nazi storm trooper.

The resolution, which appeared in the official government gazette in
mid-October, primarily criticized Washington's decision to build a wall
along the Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants out.

But in its fourth paragraph, it calls on the U.S. Congress to ``demand
that the government of President Bush explain the self-inflicted attack on
the World Trade Center and its victims, the supposed aircraft that crashed
into the Pentagon and the links between the bin Laden family and the Bush
family.''

The resolution, drafted by the deputy chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Commission, Carlos Escarrá, was passed unanimously by the 167-member
assembly, all of them Chávez supporters after an opposition boycott of
elections last December.

Both Chávez and Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro have referred several
times in the past to suspicions that the 9/11 attacks were planned by the
Bush administration, and have called for an inquiry.

But this appears to be the first time that the term ''self-inflicted
attack'' has been used without qualification.

Asked how the legislature had reached that conclusion, Escarrá said that
''evidence and testimonies'' had emerged in the United States and that
''for the rest of the world, there is no longer any question'' that 9/11
was not an al Qaeda attack.

About the time the lawmakers were approving the resolution, an exhibition
called ''Truths About the Empire'' was on display in the foyer of the
Foreign Ministry. It included a photo montage showing Bush dressed in the
uniform of the German SS.

The exhibition was removed after a reporter for a U.S. newspaper asked to
photograph it. A U.S. diplomat, who asked for anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak on the record about the issue, said the display was
``an insult to the 400,000 Americans who died in World War II fighting the
Nazis.''

Escarrá said the comparison might indeed be considered unfair -- but to
Hitler, not to Bush. ''Hitler was a babe in arms compared to Bush,'' he
asserted. He added that just like Hitler, Bush had ``an extermination
plan.''

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