Chavez' Surprise for Bush - Offering to Sell Cheap Oil to America's Poor

Worried about the skyrocketing cost of gasoline and heating oil this winter?

Well, Hugo Chavez, the firebrand president of oil-rich Venezuela, wants to help.

Chavez, a former army officer twice elected president in huge landslides, has become a target of the Bush administration for his radical social policies.

Last month, right-wing evangelist Pat Robertson openly urged his assassination.

But now Chavez is firing back at Bush and Robertson with a surprise weapon - cheap oil for America's poor.

In an exclusive interview yesterday, the Venezuelan leader said his country will soon start to ship heating oil and diesel fuel at below market prices to poor communities and schools in the United States.

"We will begin with a pilot project in Chicago on Oct. 14, in a Mexican-American community," said Chavez, who was in town for the United Nations sessions. "We will then expand the program to New York and Boston in November."

The first New York neighborhood in the program will be the South Bronx, where Chavez was to speak today as a guest of Rep. Jose Serrano.

The Venezuelan leader revealed details of the new oil-for-the-poor program during a wide-ranging interview at the upper East Side home of his country's UN ambassador.

"If you want to eliminate poverty, you have to empower the poor, not treat them as beggars," Chavez said.