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09/17/2005:

"Chavez: U.S. Plans to Invade Venezuela"

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday he has documentary evidence that the United States plans to invade his country.

Chavez, interviewed on ABC's ''Nightline,'' said the plan is called ''Balboa'' and involves aircraft carriers and planes. A transcript of the interview was made available by ''Nightline.''

He said U.S. soldiers recently went to Curacao, an island off Venezuela's northwest coast. He described as a ''lie'' the official U.S. explanation that they visited Curacao for rest and recreation.

''They were doing movements. They were doing maneuvers,'' Chavez said, speaking through a translator.

He added: ''We are coming up with the counter-Balboa plan. That is to say if the government of the United States attempts to commit the foolhardy enterprise of attacking us, it would be embarked on a 100-year war. We are prepared.''

Chavez has been attending the summit of world leaders at the United Nations in New York this week. On Thursday, he denounced the U.S.-led war in Iraq and told other leaders they should consider moving the U.N. headquarters out of the United States.

To prove U.S. intentions to invade Venezuela, Chavez offered to send ''Nightline'' host Ted Koppel maps and other documentation.

''What I can't tell you is how we got it, to protect the sources, how we got it through military intelligence,'' he said.

In the event of a U.S. invasion, Chavez said the United States can ''just forget'' about receiving any more oil from his country.
nytimes.com

Chavez Takes Bush to Task on World Stage Over War in Iraq
"There were never weapons of mass destruction but Iraq was bombed, and over U.N. objections, (it was) occupied and continues being occupied," Chavez 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," Chavez said.

Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, suggested moving U.N. headquarters 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 was not in the audience when Chavez spoke to the world representatives. But the U.S. president did address the summit's the opening session on Wednesday morning, then returned to Washington later that day.

World leaders at the summit had been asked to speak for five minutes but Chavez 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.

Hugo Chavez: «United States a terrorist state»
At a press conference after his speech, Chavez said that the United States was a "terrorist state" because of its actions in Iraq, Robertson's assassination call and for harboring Luis Posada Carriles, who is wanted for the bombing of a Cuban airliner.

"It is a terrorist state. It is a government that violates all rules and behaves shamelessly," he said.

"The United States is the champion of double standards. The United States' government defends terrorism. They talk of the fight against the terrorism, but they commit terrorism, state terrorism," said Chavez.

The Venezuelan president said the United States had used napalm in Iraq and protects Posada Carriles, who is being held in the United States on immigration charges.