Senate Foreign Relations Chairman calls Venezuela 'adversarial regime'

Comparing Venezuela to Iran, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar said that the Chavez government is an "adversarial regime" that uses energy as a "weapon."

This is an important development, as Lugar - one of the most powerful foreign policy figures in the United States - is known as a political moderate who weighs his words very carefully.

Lugar made the comment in a written keynote speech at the Richard G. Lugar-Purdue University Summit on Energy Security on August 29. The full text of his speech appears on his homepage at: http://lugar.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=262155.