HAVANA -- (AP) -- President Fidel Castro of Cuba said Saturday that his
 government will keep a close eye on the new Bush administration, insisting that
 he will not judge it beforehand but noting that millions of Cubans are trained to
 handle firearms.

 ``A new administration of a very irregular form has just been installed in the United
 States,'' Castro told more than 200,000 people gathered in San José de Las
 Lajas, about 30 miles southeast of the capital.

 ``We are not in a hurry to judge it beforehand . . . We will not throw the first
 stone,'' Castro said during his half-hour speech, televised live on state television.
 But, he said, ``we will carefully watch every step it makes and every word it
 pronounces.''

 ``Absolutely nothing will take us by surprise,'' Castro added.

 Castro noted that ``the Cuba of today is not the Cuba of 1959'' -- the year the
 revolution triumphed.

 Then, he said, Cuban citizens were unarmed and practically illiterate.

 Now, ``there is not a single illiterate person'' on the island, the Cuban leader
 declared. ``Millions of men and women have learned how to handle weapons.''

 He said his government would continue the ``battle of ideas'' launched 14 months
 ago against U.S. policies toward Cuba, referring to mass rallies held regularly on
 Saturdays in different parts of the island.

 Castro made his first public comments about Bush last weekend after the Jan. 20
 inauguration, saying he hoped his new adversary in the White House -- the 10th
 U.S. president to serve since Castro came to power -- is ``not as stupid as he
 seems.''

 The White House declined to comment on most of the earlier remarks.

 Bush has expressed support for the four-decade U.S. trade embargo on Cuba.

 He has said he envisions no change in U.S. policy toward the communist island
 unless free elections are held and political prisoners are freed.