Some Leaders Angry That US Exported Financial Crisis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As world leaders headed to Washington for a weekend summit on the global financial crisis, the United States made a pitch for modest reforms instead of the stiffer regulation that some European countries favor.

"The crisis was not a failure of the free market system," President George W. Bush told a New York audience on Thursday ahead of a Friday night dinner and meeting on Saturday of the heads of the Group of 20 developed and emerging nations.

The greater threat to prosperity is "not too little government involvement, it is too much government involvement in the market," Bush said.

The message may ring hollow with some G20 countries that say under-regulated U.S. financial industries effectively exported to the global economy a crisis that originated in reckless U.S. mortgage lending.

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