NEW YORK - George Soros has spent hundreds of millions of dollars democratizing Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, but has now made President George W. Bush the target of his money.

The tycoon and philanthropist has decided that stopping Bush from getting re-elected in 2004 is "a matter of life and death."

"America under Bush is a danger to the world," according to Soros, 73. He has written a book hammering US foreign policy under the current president, written newspaper articles and is funding US organisations fighting Bush's re-election.

He insists the book, "The Bubble of American Supremacy", was "published at great speed because of the urgency of the subject."

"I have made it my primary objective to persuade the American public to reject President Bush in the forthcoming elections. We have been deceived."

Soros accused Bush of "hijacking September 11" to impose US supremacy in the world.

The US president has said that the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 changed the history of the United States and that his mission now is to guarantee the security of the US people.

Soros said: "He declared war on terrorism and under that guise, implemented a radical foreign policy agenda whose underlying principles predated the tragedy.

"Those principles can be summed up as follows: international relations are relations of power, not law."

He went on: "A chasm has opened between America and the rest of the world."

The Soros thesis is that, like property and financial bubbles, the US power bubble will also burst.

Iraq has been the first test and Soros is among those who consider it a failure.

"It is difficult to think of a recent military operation that has gone so wrong," said the tycoon. Iraq is a threat to Western security because it could spark "a vicious circle of escalating violence."

Soros, from a Jewish family that escaped the Nazis and moved from communist Hungary to the United States in 1956, said "I lived through both German and Soviet occupation and learned at an early age how political systems can affect your very survival.

"When I hear president Bush say that 'either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,' I hear alarm bells."

Soros, whose foundation offices have twice been attacked in Russia recently, stepped up his financing of anti-Bush causes in recent months.

In May he launched Iraq Revenue Watch to monitor the use made by the US-led coalition of funds from Iraqi oil exports.

To the anger of Republicans, he has also injected large amounts of money into organisations that are deeply involved in the election battle against Bush.

Soros said he had made only "relatively modest contributions" to the Democrats in previous elections.

He has held functions at his New York state home in support of a number of Democratic party candidates, including Howard Dean, John Kerry, Wesley Clark and Richard Gephardt.

But more importantly he has spent 15 million dollars to help activist groups fighting the US president.

Soros gave 10 million dollars to America Coming Together, which campaigns to increase the number of people taking part in elections and 2.5 million dollars to Moveon.org, a mass grass-roots organisation that has opposed the Iraq war and many other Bush policies.

US law bans contributions of more than 2,000 dollars to any individual presidential candidate so Soros preferred to work through the activist groups, according to Steven Weissman, a co-director of the Campaign Finance Institute, which monitors funding.

Groups like Moveon.org cannot officially support a candidate, but they can attack the opponent.

Soros has been criticized by Republicans and some media of trying to evade US election campaign finance laws.

"Wasn't the whole point of the new campaign finance law to get big checks of this kind out of politics?" questioned the Washington Post.

But Soros remains determined. A spokesman said that Soros "has no specific plans to contribute additional funds but he is open to the idea."

© 2003 AFP

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