"Whereever people are in a difficult situation, it causes a lot of pain for us," Ahmadinejad said in an interview posted on the US news magazine's website.

"And I think that the government of the USA should have acted much quicker...and if people had been informed earlier, they would have been able to help better."

Ahmadinejad's jab at the Bush administration coincided with a speech at the United Nations in which the Iranian president unveiled new proposals designed to defuse an international dispute over its nuclear program.

The United States and European governments suspect Iran is seeking to build an atomic bomb under the cover of a civilian nuclear program. Iran insists its efforts are solely aimed at generating electricity.

In his interview with Time, Ahmadinejad also said that Iran had allowed extensive UN inspections of its nuclear sites while states that had large nuclear arsenals were free from scrutiny.

"We have had more than 1,200 man-days of inspections, something that is really without precedent in the last 40 years. Their monitoring cameras are everywhere in our facilities. At the same time, we see that some powers continue to expand their armaments," he said.

Responding to questions about Iraq, Ahmadinejad said Iran wanted to see an international tribunal prosecute Iraq's former president, Saddam Hussein, in addition to the trial planned by the Iraqi authorities.

"As for Saddam, there are the crimes he committed inside Iraq, and the government there should try him. But we think there should also be an international court, an international trial."

Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980 initiated an eight-year war between the two countries that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

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