Money, food and oil from countries ranging from 25,000 dollars each from the Maldives and Sri Lanka to 500 million dollars in oil and cash from Kuwait, as the scope of the devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast has become clear.

The State Department said Tuesday that 90 countries had made offers.

The United States suffered a lot of criticism after the Iraq war and many observers in other countries have seen the hurricane as a humbling episode for the superpower, which was late to rescue survivors, could not control looting in New Orleans and now needs foreign aid.

But the view is not shared in Washington.

"I think that the American people can take great heart from the fact that when we need help, when we need assistance, the world is answering the call," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

"I think what we do is, we accept these offers in the spirit in which they are given," he added at a State Department briefing.

"I don't think it is perceived as a humiliation here. It is perceived as a generous gesture of the international community," added a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

President George W. Bush's administration initially hesitated to accept offers of aid. But when it did at the weekend, there was unreserved gratitude for the international wave of solidarity.

In a letter to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Bush said "millions of Americans appreciate your public expression of solidarity," adding "I am grateful for the substantial offers you and others in the international community have made."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice commented: "People have said that America has been so generous ... in other places, and now it's time to be generous to America."

After the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the US government accepted help from some countries, but not rivals such as Cuba.

This time the administration has said it will accept help from any country. Venezuela and Cuba, which have formed an "anti-imperialist" alliance against the United States, have both offered assistance.

Venezuela's one million dollars in Red Cross aid was mentioned on a State Department list of contributors, along with countries like Afghanistan, which gave 100,000 dollars, and Bangladesh which sent one million dollars.

Oil states Qatar and the United Arab Emirates each gave 100 million dollars.

Cuba's offer to send 1,600 doctors was not immediately accepted. Washington said all offers were being evaluated.

"I didn't know about Cuba. But I'm not surprised, because you know, it's kind of people to people," former president George Bush told CNN television this week.

The world has seen the "destruction and devastation," he added. "And so it doesn't matter whether it's a communist country or socialist country or capitalistic country. I think they feel something about the individual suffering and the loss of family. I know that's true in China, for example."

The elder Bush and former president Bill Clinton are leading efforts to raise money for the hurricane disaster zone. They led a similar operation to raise money after the Asian tsunami disaster in December.

The US ambassador to NATO, Victoria Nuland, said in Brussels that the United States "has been enormously grateful for the outpouring of support, both emotional and concrete" from its allies.

Washington has asked Europe for logistical help, food rations, camp beds, generators, water, baby nappies, and veterinary supplies.

It has used Canadian and Singapore helicopters to fly over the disaster region and Greek cruise ships have been used to house survivors.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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