WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration, which appeared to tacitly endorse the short-lived ouster of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said on Tuesday it met with the opposition in recent months but denied encouraging a coup.

"Our message has been consistent. The political situation in Venezuela is one for the Venezuelans to resolve peacefully, democratically and constitutionally," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters. "We explicitly told opposition leaders that the United States would not support a coup."

Venezuelan military officers deposed Chavez on Friday after 17 people were killed during huge protests against his rule. He was replaced with an interim government lead by business leader Pedro Carmona, who dismissed Congress and the Supreme Court.

Chavez returned to office in triumph on Sunday when loyalist troops ended the coup after tens of thousands of his supporters demonstrated to demand his return.

The United States, which has a long history of intervening to overthrow leftist and populist leaders in Latin America, appeared to tacitly endorse Chavez's ouster on Friday, blaming him for creating the conditions that led to his overthrow and urging authorities to move to elections as soon as possible.

The New York Times on Tuesday quoted a Pentagon official as saying U.S. officials sent "informal, subtle signals" that the Bush administration did not like Chavez, raising questions about whether Washington quietly egged the coup plotters on.

U.S. officials met Carmona and Gen. Lucas Rincon, chief of the Venezuelan armed forces, and other influential Venezuelans in recent months but they strenuously denied on Tuesday that they signaled any support for a coup against Chavez.

The firebrand former paratrooper, who won a landslide election in 1998 on a crusading anti-poverty platform, has angered U.S. officials by his friendship with Cuban President Fidel Castro, his contacts, mainly about oil, with Iraq, and his questioning of the U.S. war on terrorism.

The absence of a quick U.S. condemnation of the coup drew criticism from analysts and Democratic lawmakers, who said it undermined U.S. credibility as a defender of democracy.

"I'm very concerned about what message it sends about our support for democracy," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat. "We've got to be supportive of democratic principles even when they choose to elect people we do not like."

NO WINKS

Venezuela is particularly crucial to U.S. interests because it is the fourth largest U.S. supplier of oil and petroleum, exporting 1.5 million barrels of oil a day to the U.S. market.

Asked if U.S. officials offered a wink and a nudge to the coup plotters in its meetings, Fleischer said he was unaware of such signals but did not categorically rule them out.

A host of officials around Washington were eager to try to quell speculation that the Bush administration had even hinted at support for a coup, though few wished to be quoted by name.

"The implication that the United States somehow explicitly or implicitly encouraged a coup could not be more wrong," said one U.S. official who asked not to be named.

"People have been coming to us complaining. We told them that we support the democratic process and everything has to be done constitutionally. We didn't so much as wink at them," said a State Department official.

Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Roger Pardo-Maurer, U.S. deputy assistant defense secretary for western hemisphere affairs, met Venezuelan military chief Rincon in December and "made it very, very clear that the U.S. intent was to support democracy, human rights, that we in no way would support any coups or unconstitutional activity."

U.S. officials have been unrepentant about their failure to condemn the coup immediately last week but experts who have had contacts with U.S. officials this week said the administration understood its apparent sympathy for the coup was a mistake.

"Given my contacts with people in the administration over the last two days -- they will not say so publicly -- but quite clearly there has been a rethink of the decision last week at the time of the coup," said Riordan Roett of the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.