Understanding America today means understanding the impact of the September 11 attacks, says US Consul General Dennis Colman.

"The landscape changed with 9/11. I think in dealing with Americans for people not to understand that 9/11 is embedded is an ontological reality embedded deeply in our psyche is to miss part of our makeup," he said.

In a wide ranging interview, he discussed America's differences with many nations on the United Nations Security Council as well as a widely held perception that the US lacks credibility.

Mr. Colman responded to a number of criticisms levied against his Government and charged Saddam Hussein's Iraq as being an imperialistic power.

He declared himself at a loss to understand the manner in which former South African president Nelson Mandela recently chose to criticise his country over its Iraq policy.

"I find it irreconcilable," Mr. Colman said. "I have enormous respect for this man. Any man that could rise above bitterness to make the positive contributions that he has, truly deserve the Nobel Peace Prize."

Alluding to recent rhetoric used by US president George W. Bush, Mr. Mandela said last week that America had "no moral authority to talk about evil," given the fact that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War, and that America's behaviour toward the United Nations would be different if the Secretary General was not a black man.

"He also made a racial statement which if anyone in the United States had made such stereotype comments like that, they would have been booed off the world stage," Mr. Colman said. "You tell me how he can reconcile his relationship with Libya."

He reiterated president Bush's claims that Iraq has links to al Qaeda, the group alleged to have carried out the September 11 attacks.

"We believe that it is threatening to us. It has been sanctioned by the UN and it is threatening to us," he said.

Saddam Hussein, George Bush's nemesis, is a "maniac" with "no moral boundaries".