"It would have been better not to accept American help," said Hossein Shariatmadari, chief of the influential conservative daily Kayhan, quoted Friday by the student news agency ISNA.

"What matters is that the United States is our main enemy, whose objectives include the overthrow of the Islamic republic," he said.

In Bam Friday, a week after the quake that levelled the southeast Iranian city, killing some 30,000 people, the imam leading weekly prayers called for an end to US and Israeli oppression.

For his part, an outspoken ayatollah in Tehran said the aid would not wipe the slate clean for "evil" US President George W. Bush.

In Tehran, hardline Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, chairman of the powerful Guardians Council, in a tirade against the United States dismissed US aid to Bam as little more than an overture to resume diplomatic relations with Iran.

"But they got a slap in the face," he said. "We cannot forget the problems (between the two countries) just for a few scraps of aid."

Janati told the Americans: "If you had any honour, humanity or mercy, you would do better to have pity on the Iraqi and Palestinian peoples for whom you have caused an earthquake.

"Bush the evil one has completely dishonoured Christianity" with his "warlike policies in the Christian year which has just drawn to a close.

"Is Jesus happy with the evil Bush, who invokes religion and Christianity?" he asked.

And Imam Asghar Asqari said in Bam: "I hope the day will come when we will cut off the hands of the American and Israeli oppressors, those warmongering forces who occupy Iraq and Palestine, and replace them with hands which reach out to offer aid, friendship and humanity."

The United States sent eight planeloads of aid as well as some 80 relief and medical experts to Bam and eased sanctions on Iran in a gesture welcomed by former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi on Thursday.

But reformist President Mohammad Khatami ruled out the initiative leading to talks on resuming relations.

In a speech Thursday, Bush said he had temporarily lifted restrictions on sending money and sensitive equipment to Iran "to be able to get humanitarian aid into the country," not to send a signal to Tehran.

And he made it clear that, if the Islamic republic wants better relations, it must turn over any followers of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden it has in custody, abandon its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, and embrace political reform.

A senior US official said Friday that Washington had proposed sending a delegation headed by Senator Elizabeth Dole and a member of Bush's family to Iran on a humanitarian mission, but a State Department spokesman said Iran had, for the moment, rejected the proposal.

"We have heard back from the Iranians, that given the current situation in Bam and all that is going on there now, it would be preferable to hold such a visit in abeyance," said Adam Ereli.

"Therefore we are not pursuing this further at the moment."

He added that any talk of a future mission once the situation in Bam had eased would be "speculation."

Such a mission would be the first public official US visit to Iran since the 1979-81 period, when the American embassy was siezed by radical students and 52 staff were held hostage for 444 days. The crisis led to Washington breaking off diplomatic relations and imposing sanctions.

In Bam, 37-year-old teacher Mohammad Ali Dastyar said, "We are happy because the Americans heard our cries."

Asked if they were worried about having "the Great Satan" in Bam, Dastyar's family, sharing a tent near the ruins of their home, laughed.

"Politics is different from human relations. They are here as people to help other people," Dastyar said. "Between peoples, there is no war, it is war between politicians."

One of the elite Revolutionary Guards, Ali Hosseini, 40, said: "I think they care for other people and want to help us," adding: "It's the US government we have a problem with, not the American people."

But Meddi Faramarz Toor, who said he had lost 40 relatives in the earthquake, was categorical. "I am not accepting any aid from the United States," he said. "We don't need their help."

Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi, quoted by ISNA, said: "This aid is a humanitarian matter, it should be provided without being politicised."

TERRA.WIRE