Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has recently revealed that the administration was searching for a means to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the very first days of the Bush administration's occupation of the White House.

According to secret documents made available to the press by O'Neill, the administration was already looking ahead to a post-Saddam Iraq and how to divvy up the country's oil fields well before Sept. 11.

O'Neill's remarks are viewed by many -- deservedly -- as sour grapes, after he was fired from his job. The White House administration has said that it was simply maintaining a policy of a Saddam ousting that has existed since the first Gulf War.

But O'Neill's revelations are consistent with the policies of an administration that unwaveringly seeks to advance the interests of big business -- particularly their cronies in the oil industry.

Rebuilding contracts worth billions of dollars have been awarded without bid to corporations friendly to the administration. Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, is currently under a Pentagon probe to determine whether it overcharged for gasoline supplying Iraq.

To claim that the war was an altruistic effort to overthrow an admittedly savage dictator and liberate the people of Iraq is both disingenuous and insulting to the American people and soldiers, the Iraqis and the world.

The United States has and continues to support brutal regimes around the world when it suits our corporate interest.

America even backed Saddam during his most horrific abuses of power, when he unleashed chemical weapons on his own people. Why didn't we go after him then?

The administration took our country down the unprecedented path of a preemptive war with a sovereign country. In a shamelessly transparent action, the Bush administration moved to take over control of the vast oil and natural resources of a nation that lies strategically in the heart of the Middle East.

Since "Operation Iraqi Freedom" began, 509 U.S. troops have lost their lives as of this writing, with 394 of those coming after major combat was declared over.

In addition, 2,916 American soldiers have been wounded during the war and subsequent occupation.

At least 8,041 Iraqi civilians have been killed since March, according to the Iraq Body Count Project, a Web site that compiles online media reports and eyewitness accounts to pool its data.

Thus far, American and allied forces have located no significant cache of weapons of mass destruction. Secretary of State Colin Powell has conceded that the feared weapons he told the U.N. Security Council of in the months leading up to war may have never existed at all.

The British intelligence on the attempted uranium purchase, cited by President Bush, has been proven to be utterly false.

Bush also told the American people and the U.N. that Iraq was aiding terror network al-Qaida with financing and training, thus drawing an apparent link between Saddam and the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Bush administration now admits there is no credible exisiting evidence of a link between Saddam, Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida. The Bush administration used the fears generated by Sept. 11 to invade and occupy a country that was no real threat to us, but was a jewel in the sand that could not be resisted.

The good will of the world in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks has been replaced by "fear and loathing," to quote writer Hunter S. Thompson.

The likelihood of future terrorist attacks has only been increased by the foreign policy of this administration, while the rest of the world is asking, "Are we next?"

Who will be the next "outlaw" regime that gets in the way of American interests?

The world is on notice.

And in the eyes of the world, the regime that poses the greatest threat to world stability, sovereignty and peace resides comfortably at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.