NEW YORK - Nearly 200,000 anti-war demonstrators took to the
streets of Manhattan on Saturday, protesting the U.S.-led invasion of
Iraq even as bombs rained down on Baghdad again.
Smaller demonstrations took place in dozens of cities nationwide, from
thousands marching in San Francisco to several hundred protesters snaking
through downtown Washington, chanting, ``No blood for oil!''
In New York, the turnout for a march that was 20 abreast and 40 blocks
long surprised some parade organizers. They had worried that the
round-the-clock bombing and videotape of U.S. tanks racing across the
Iraqi desert might cause some anti-war Americans to despair. Instead,
unofficial police estimates of the crowd size grew steadily through the
day, and marchers spoke of their determination to be heard a final
time.
``It's too late to stop the war, but it's important to register that this
is an unpopular war,'' said Joe Fitzgerald, 45, a musician who marched
past Manhattan's tree-lined Union Square with his child and his wife,
Deane Beebe. ``Our government's reasoning is so nakedly cynical -- one
day it's because of Al-Qaida, then weapons of mass destruction, then to
establish a military presence.
``The pretext for this invasion changes ever day.''
Some celebrities joined in, including actors Roy Scheider, Ossie Davis
and Ruby Dee, and singer Patti Smith.
``We support the troops, but we do not support the president,'' said Rep.
Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., a Korean War veteran.
About 2,000 police officers were assigned to the rally, including
undercover officers with beeper-sized radiation detectors and other
counterterrorism measures.
Police, protesters scuffle
After the permit for the march expired at 4 p.m., several hundred
protesters refused officers' orders to clear the area, and some scuffled
with police. Hundreds of officers in riot gear and officers on horseback
pulled one protester after another out of the crowd and placed them in a
police truck.
Police said 74 people were arrested. Protesters said police used pepper
spray, and police said 14 officers were getting medical treatment after
being sprayed with an unknown substance.
D.C. demonstrators defy police
In Washington, demonstrators descended on the White House and
Northwest Washington neighborhoods in an improvised day of protests
marked by sometimes-tense standoffs with police at Lafayette Square and
near Logan Circle.
Unlike anti-war marches in Washington in recent weeks, in which
organizers have largely worked with authorities to map out routes,
Saturday's demonstrations at times took place in defiance of a heavy
federal and local police presence.
Shortly after noon at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, marchers
brushed aside barricades to enter Lafayette Square across from the White
House, which was closed to demonstrations larger than 25 after the Sept.
11 terror attacks. Later, as hundreds of marchers left the square to head
up 14th Street, the chanting protesters circled back and ducked into
alleys near Logan Circle to escape a police escort.
March down Sunset Boulevard
In Hollywood, war protesters marched down Sunset Boulevard,
complaining that news coverage is slanted. One sign showed a photo of an
Iraqi mother with a wounded child and said, ``Collateral damage has a
face.''
In Chicopee, Mass., 53 of about 1,500 protesters were arrested when they
blocked a road to Westover Air Reserve Base during an anti-war
rally.
Sixteen protesters were arrested on trespassing charges when they refused
to leave Iowa's National Guard headquarters in Johnston. One of them,
Carolyn Uhlenhake Walker, an elementary-school teacher, declared, ``I'm a
patriot, and I'm offended by people that say we don't love our
country.''
In El Prado, N.M., anti-war activists lay down in front of the part-time
home of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
Roy Sheider called shrub a bully with his hokey,'with us or agin'
us," crap.