Stop the War

[Headline from Le Monde, France: Over 50,000 people demonstrate against the war in Iraq]

NEW YORK (AFP) – Thousands of protesters are expected to take to the streets here and in major US West Coast cities Sunday to demand an immediate end to the war in Iraq as New York takes the relay from other US cities that have held massive anti-war marches.

United for Peace and Justice, which describes itself as the largest anti-war coalition in the United States, said it expected the protesters to turn up here en masse to mark the fourth anniversary of the US-led Iraq invasion.

“The national anti-war movement is planning a unified surge of protest actions calling on Congress to end the occupation and for the immediate withdrawal of US troops,” the group said in a statement.

Massive anti-war rallies were also being organized in San Francisco, California; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle, Washington.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched to the Pentagon’s doorstep Saturday demanding “US out of Iraq Now,” ahead of the fourth anniversary of the US invasion.

People from across the United States gathered on a cold winter day to descend on the US Defense Department offices and decry the conflict that has killed more than 3,200 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

Former US attorney general Ramsey Clark called for President George W. Bush’s impeachment, while Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son in Iraq, demanded a US withdrawal.

“I marched in 1967 here,” Maureen Dooley, 59, said outside the Pentagon, site of Vietnam war protests, but results were not immediate: “It took seven years to end the war.”