Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez last night 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 . . . left its own population adrift," Mr Chavez said in a cabinet meeting broadcast live on television.
"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 Mr Chavez, chuckling in a reference to Bush without naming him directly.
Mr Chavez, an outspoken populist who calls Cuba's Fidel Castro an ally, often condemns what he calls Washington's failed imperialist policies. He says the Bush administration is trying to assassinate him and calls the US president "Mr. Danger".
The two governments frequently clash though the United States is the top oil client of Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest crude exporter. Washington portrays Mr Chavez as a menace who uses his nation's oil wealth to fund anti-democratic groups.
Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA has offered $1 million from its US-based refinery unit Citgo for relief efforts.
US authorities evacuated thousands of people from New Orleans, and Mr Bush said it would take years to recover from flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina.