Permanently removing all desktop icons under gnome 2.0

[Gnome User <gnome yadda-yadda-yadda org>]

I'm currently using the version of gnome 2.0 that comes with RedHat 9.0.

I like a completely icon-less desktop, and therefore, I'd like to
permanently remove all desktop icons, including the "user's Home"
and "Trash" icons.  By "permanently", I mean that I'd like to not
have to delete the "Trash" and "user's Home" files from my
~/.gnome-desktop directory every time I log in.  Yes, I know that I
could put appropriate 'rm' commands in my .profile, but that is not
the solution I'm looking for.

There's got to be a way to tell gnome that I don't want any icons at
all, not even "user's Home" and "Trash", to show up on the desktop.
KDE provides a simple, user-controllable setting for this, but I
haven't been able to find a way to do this under gnome 2.0, neither
in any of the docs that I have, nor in the archives of all the
gnome-related mailing lists.

I'm guessing that I overlooked the discussion of exactly how to do
this, so could someone point me to the appropriate docs that explain
the exact steps that I need to take under gnome 2.0 to completely
remove all desktop icons?

Thanks in advance.

-- 
 Gnome User
 gnome yadda-yadda-yadda org