YOU can ask him anything you want, but George W. Bush isn't a man of short fuse. Recently, he told the nitpicking journalists during a press conference at the White House that what was important in his line of work was to produce results, which he did in Iraq on the basis of information that was available. So what if some of that information was goosed up and wrong. He did what he had to do.

But before George Bush faced the journalists on the White House lawn, Richard Cohen had written a column in The Washington Post, characterising the result-producing American president as an "useful idiot". Cohen, however, didn't claim originality for the term, which, according to him, was coined by V. I. Lenin to describe those gullible communist party workers who did what they were told.

Bet your bottom dollar, this Bush might go down in history as the first US president who did what he was told. The words are out that he might even accept responsibility for the information fiasco, which misled the

American people and the rest of the world. Don't underestimate his loyalty to those who tell him what to do. He will go to any length to protect them.

Richard Cohen knows more than that. In 1998, a letter was written to President Clinton arguing that America should abandon containment, "removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power." Ten of the 18 signatories of that letter-including Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz -- are now in the Bush administration. Cohen has learned

from his colleague Bob Woodward that Rumsfeld argued at the first Cabinet meeting after Sept. 11 that the United States should go to war on Iraq.

So the war on Iraq was premeditated. The decision to go to war was taken before the cause of action was there, before Saddam was believed to be on the verge of obtaining weapons of mass destruction, before Saddam was believed to have link with a man whom the world came to know as Osama bin Laden. Bush and his company were waiting to come to power and produce results.

They have produced more impressive results in the past weeks. Uday and Qusay were killed and buried along with Saddam's 14-year old grandson. Now the posse is tightening around the top prize. The US soldiers are scouring Iraq with retouched images of their best game. Soon Saddam might get caught, and George Bush will have produced more results.

But if Bush is in a hurry, here is an idea. Take Dara Singh, the wrestler-turned-actor, from India and then put him on display as Saddam

Hussein. He will be a perfect Saddam look-alike with minimum retouch. Have a special state-of-the-union address and announce Saddam's capture. If and when people find out the truth like they did about the uranium from Niger, blame it on CIA, the British intelligence or, even better, on Dr. Kelly, the British scientist who is dead. Tell the nitpicking journalists in another press conference in the White House that in your line of work, it was important to produce results on the basis of information that was there. So what if it was Dara Singh instead of Saddam Hussein!

At least it will put to bed the biggest double-cross of this century. If you really think, the Iraqis have suffered for the sins of Osama bin Laden. It wasn't easy to justify a war on Iraq between the Gulf War and September 11. It wouldn't have been easy to invade Iraq if the destruction of Twin Towers in New York hadn't mobilized the world sympathy in favour of the Americans. But what happened to Laden? Where did he vanish?

If I remember, there was a price on his head also. A close blood of

Saddam turned in Uday and Qusay to their enemy for a reward of 30 million US dollars. May be another friend, relative, or admirer will turn in Saddam Hussein for 25 million US dollars. But why hasn't anybody snitched on Laden? Why hasn't US issued his retouched images and engaged its troops to hunt him down?

Which leads to the question, how did Saddam Hussein become more wanted than Osama bin Laden? After all Laden is blamed for the atrocious act, which has made the Americans upset. He dared them on their own soil, while Saddam was a

distant bully many miles away across the ocean. He was never a threat to the American security, and he never wished to be.

He just wanted to be a Middle East monarch, a dynastic ruler, who enjoyed sitting at the head of a long table with his cabinet, talking tall with flourish of his hands and smile on his face. He liked to dress in Arab kaffiyeh and American cowboy hat, a strongman whose weakness was his own identity. He could never figure out if he was a leader, father, ruler, stooge, visionary or clown.

Osama bin Laden is different. Here is a man who wants to change the world, a man who has vowed to put fear into the hearts of infidels on the other side of the Atlantic. He is the man who is blamed for blowing the Twin Towers and attacking the Pentagon. It was to capture him and his band of brothers that the coalition forces went to Afghanistan and Tony Blair made White House's wish Downing Street's command.

Why is this surcease in the search for Laden? Why is this let up on him? It is difficult to understand this part of the script in the unfolding drama of US action against terror-

ism. Suddenly, Saddam Hussein is the number one enemy, who is worth four billion dollars every month, one or two dead soldiers every day and worldwide condemnation.

It doesn't make sense unless you indulge in one of the conspiracy theories. The US wants Iraqi oil. The US wants a weak Middle East for the security of Israel. The US wants this, and the US wants that. True, the US wants something, something more than the freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people. But nothing explains the cameo role Osama bin Laden has played in this whole shebang.

Unless you think Osama bin Laden is the alter ego of George Bush. Laden started what Bush has vowed to finish. What Laden did, if he at all did it, Bush has done many times more, blowing many more buildings and many more lives. Bush has magnified the tragedy Laden initiated.

Perhaps Osama bin Laden's biggest legacy is George Bush himself, the scowling howling statesman, who believes that he can terrorise terrorism. Somewhere in the arcane world of common sense, you can sense that there is something common between two of them. Both failed to fathom what is common knowledge to rest of us. Hatred begets hatred, which perpetuates the cycle of violence and vengeance.

If we talk about borrowed intelligence, wherever you are hiding George W. Laden, Osama bin Bush lives in the White House.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.