GERMANY clashed with the United States again yesterday over the Iraq crisis after a Junior Defence Minister in Berlin described President Bush as a dictator.

The comments made by Walter Kolbow are sure to complicate further the troubled relationship between the Bush Administration and Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor.

During the German election campaign last year, Mr Bush was furious after one minister compared him to Hitler and another leading Social Democrat politician accused him of behaving like a Roman Emperor.

Herr Kolbow told a political rally: “Bush is positioning himself economically and politically in an absolutely one- sided way, he is not paying regard to anybody else. That’s not a partner but a dictator.”

He said that his comments, reported by a local newspaper the Kitzinger Zeitung, had been taken out of context and that he had used the same speech to welcome the presence of US soldiers at the rally in southern Germany.

Observers present, however, said that the speech had been full of contempt for the Bush Administration.

“I have sat opposite Donald Rumsfeld and I can tell you it was no pleasure,” Herr Kolbow told the applauding crowd. “It’s time that he learnt the diplomatic niceties.”

Although Mr Rumsfeld has pronounced the German-US relationship to be “unpoisoned” after months of American cold-shouldering and snubs, relations are still very raw.

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