Just for the record:

Castro: Cuba Could Have Saved U.S. Victims
By ANITA SNOW, AP

HAVANA (AP) - President Fidel Castro on Monday lamented that the U.S. government had not still responded two weeks after he offered to send nearly 1,600 Cuban doctors to help Hurricane Katrina victims, saying the team could have saved lives.

The U.S. government has suggested there were sufficient American physicians to care for the ailing among those displaced by the storm across Louisiana and Mississippi.

An appeal for help from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services "has seen a robust response from the American medical community," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said earlier this month.

"It hurts to think about it," Castro told several thousand doctors gathered for a combined graduation and the formation of Cuba's new international disaster team of experienced health workers.

"Perhaps some of those desperate people, situated in the water and on the verge of dying, could have been saved," the Cuban leader said.

"That's a hard lesson for those whose false pride and erroneous concepts have driven them not to respond, even late, to our offer," Castro said of American officials.

A State Department spokesman in Washington said Monday night there was no immediate reaction to Castro's latest comments.

Washington and Havana have not had diplomatic relations for more than four decades and Castro's offer put U.S. officials in the uncomfortable position of deciding whether to accept help from a country they have described as an "outpost of tyranny."

Castro himself has routinely turned down offers of U.S. humanitarian relief for hurricanes and other disasters in Cuba. After Hurricane Dennis pummeled the island in July, he expressed gratitude but rejected Washington's offer of $50,000 in aid.