Iranian president 'US governs by coercion, force'

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29 (Reuters) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a letter to the American people today, accused their government of ''coercion, force and injustice'' and urged the United States to pull out of Iraq.

Ahmadinejad's five-page letter also called on Washington to recognize a Palestinian state and cautioned the Democratic Party that, after gaining control of the U.S. Congress, they would be ''held to account by the people and by history.'' The letter was given to Reuters by Iran's Mission to the United Nations.

The Iranian leader, who wrote an 18-page letter to President George W Bush in May that Bush never responded to, said he was now writing to the American people in friendship because Iran and the United States shared a responsibility ''to promote and protect freedom and human dignity and integrity.'' ''Governments are there to serve their own people. No people wants to side with or support any oppressors. But regrettably, the US administration disregards even its own public opinion and remains in the forefront of supporting the trampling of the rights of the Palestinian people,'' he said.

''It is possible to govern based on an approach that is distinctly different from one of coercion, force and injustice,'' Ahmadinejad said.

On Iraq, he said that with a constitution and government now in place, ''would it not be more beneficial to bring the US officers and soldiers home, and to spend the astronomical US military expenditures in Iraq for the welfare and prosperity of the American people?'' ''As you know very well, many victims of Katrina continue to suffer, and countless Americans continue to live in poverty and homelessness,'' he said.

REUTERS PB BD2302