Venezuela on Monday said it will not allow U.S. agents to carry out counter-drug operations in the country, accusing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of being a “new cartel” that aids traffickers.

Justice Minister Pedro Carreno said the South American nation suspended cooperation with the agency in 2005 after determining that “they were moving a large amount of drugs.” President Hugo Chavez at the time also accused the DEA of spying.

Senior U.S. administration officials have told the U.S. Congress that they could not promise that the Bush administration would fulfill its January pledge to continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.

The U.S. government was turning down many allies’ offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina’s victims.

Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent.

The House Committee investigating the firing of US Attorneys by the Justice Department authorized the issuing of subpoenas of top aides to President George W. Bush today in a voice vote. They stopped short of issuing the subpoenas themselves.

“The motion passed to authorize the chairman to issue subpoenas,” said a spokesperson for House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers in an e-mail to RAW STORY.

The Democratic senator said evidence suggests that Bush’s top law enforcement official, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, “was carrying out the political wishes of the president in at least some of these firings.”

Gonzales has faced calls for his resignation following news the prosecutors had been sacked, and Schumer repeated that call Tuesday.

“All the evidence makes clear that this purge was based purely on politics: to punish prosecutors who were perceived to be too light on Democrats or too tough on Republicans,” he said, adding that among the officials he hopes to hear from are White House aides Harriet Miers and Karl Rove and Gonzales himself.