It’s about time.

Venezuela’s regional neighbors should be ready to respond to a potential threat from President Hugo Chavez’s arms build-up, which could be used to intimidate rather than for self-defense, a senior U.S. defense official said on Thursday.

Chavez, a self-styled socialist staunchly opposed to Washington, has irked the White House by spending billions of dollars on Russian fighter jets, attack helicopters and Kalashnikov rifles to refurbish the military.

The Bush administration has banned U.S. arms sales to Venezuela, criticized Chavez’s purchase of jets from Moscow and said his plans to build rifle factories raise concerns about weapons reaching guerrillas in neighboring Colombia.

“It seems as if a build up of this character doesn’t really respond to the reality on the ground there,” U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs Stephen Johnson told reporters during a visit Bogota.

“It has an effect of intimidating neighbors … and democracies in the region need to be able to respond to this in a way that will help reduce this kind of threat,” he said.

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