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I think a lot of misconception about Buddhism comes from someone's poor decision to use the term "desire" to describe something that's better thought of as "attachment."
Yes, I will always desire food, water, sex, etc. I don't think Buddha was suggesting that you overcome this.
I think what Buddha was talking about was obsessive attachment to particular things. For instance, I may be attached to the idea that I will get a job after graduating from college, or to my car, or to a specific woman. I develop feeling of entitlement, and when the target object is denied or lost, I suffer. If I had not attached myself to a particular worldly thing, I would not have suffered.
In a grand sense, most people are also attached to the world, and being alive in it. Because this attachment cannot be fulfilled -- we must eventually die, it causes near-universal suffering. If one recognizes and internalizes the impermanence of one's life, he or she can escape from the suffering that fear of death can cause.
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