UNITED NATIONS – The word “devil” was uttered no fewer than eight times during Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday. In each case, he meant it to describe one man – President Bush.

“Yesterday, the devil came here,” Chavez said, referring to Bush’s address before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. “Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of.”

He then made the sign of the cross, brought his hands together as if praying and looked up at the ceiling.

“Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world,” Chavez said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Chavez’s remarks were “not becoming for a head of state.” “I am not going to dignify a comment by the Venezuelan president to the president of the United States,” Rice told reporters in New York.

The address appeared to be one of Chavez’ boldest moves yet to lead an alliance of countries firmly opposed to the Bush administration. The speech came after he crisscrossed the globe this summer visiting like-minded nations from Iran to Belarus.

Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer and Kim Gamel at the United Nations contributed to this story.