Former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad poured scorn on US President George W Bush's economic understanding and Australia's Asian desires in a typically abrasive return to a public platform today.

Addressing foreign ministers and businessmen at a conference on plans for an East Asia Community (EAC), Mahathir appeared to relish the freedom from diplomatic restraints which he won with his retirement last year.

While he never pulled his punches during his 22 years in power, Mahathir this time broke with convention to attack Bush personally by name.

"When the planes crashed into the World Trade Centre on Sept 11, 2001, Bush immediately identified what he thought was the true cause.

"It was because the Muslims were jealous of the freedom of the American people. It was because the Muslims were poor. This exposes a lack of understanding of things on his part," Mahathir said.

"Likewise Bush is not likely to know the true causes of the US dollar depreciation and the apparent rise in the price of oil.

"Bush is not likely to link it with the huge deficits of the US or the spendthrift ways of his government. We cannot expect Bush to do anything to restore the correct value of the US dollar. Nor would he be able to correct oil prices."

Aussie bashing

On Australia, another favourite target during his premiership, Mahathir maintained his opposition to Canberra's attempts to forge closer ties with Asian political and economic groupings.

Asked by reporters what Australia could offer the proposed East Asian Community, he replied: "Nothing".

Some countries have suggested that Australia should be invited to join the EAC, but Mahathir said: "They are ethnic Europeans, they cannot be Asians."

Leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed at a summit in Laos last week that Malaysia should hold an inaugural East Asia summit next year which will include Japan, China and South Korea.

The participation of Australia, New Zealand and India is still under discussion, with Mahathir's absence from the decision-making process removing a major stumbling block to Australia's desire for closer ties to Asian countries.

An East Asian Community would be the realisation of a 1990 proposal by Mahathir, which failed to take off due to opposition from the United States which feared it would undermine the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

Mahathir also seized the opportunity of being back in the spotlight to take a sarcastic swipe at another of his pet dislikes - the Western media.

European press

"The ethnic European press will again say what Dr Mahathir knows about finance can be written on the back of a postage stamp," he said in his speech.

"I agree entirely with them. Were they not right about the collapse of the Malaysian economy about which they wrote millions of words in thousands of pages following Malaysia's rejection of IMF advice and the institution of currency control?"

In fact, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and many economists now acknowledge that the controls imposed by Mahathir during the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis helped Malaysia ride the storm better than most countries in the region.