USA: ANTI-WAR DEMONSTRATORS RALLY ACROSS THE UNITED STATES WITH PROTESTS AGAINST A POSSIBLE ATTACK ON IRAQ

Record ID: 837278

  • Title: USA: ANTI-WAR DEMONSTRATORS RALLY ACROSS THE UNITED STATES WITH PROTESTS AGAINST A POSSIBLE ATTACK ON IRAQ
  • Date: 10th December 2002
  • Summary: (U7) NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (DECEMBER 10, 2002) (REUTERS) PAN/SLV/SV OF INTER-FAITH PEACE RALLY OUTSIDE UNITED NATIONS, OPPOSING WAR ON IRAQ (7 SHOTS) MCU (English) BILL STEYERT, PROTESTER, SAYING:"You know - the weapons of mass destruction, even if they found them, they'd find something else it seems - to go in and have a war and I'm saying not in my name you're not - that's why I am here." MCU (English) CHERI HONKALA, PROTESTER, SAYING: "Before deciding to spend billions of dollars in going some place else and killing somebody else's children we should figure out how to take care of our children first." PAN PROTESTERS OUTSIDE UNITED STATES MISSION TO THE U.N (2 SHOTS) SV PROTESTERS BEING ARRESTED (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 25th December 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, WASHINGTON, D.C., AND LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAAAF4ATG25P1M9JG0Q9I9U95SU
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Anti-war demonstrators rallied across the United States, with protests against a possible attack on Iraq ranging from a letter from Hollywood celebrities and coordinated demonstrations that led to scores of arrests.
    The protests were some of the most widespread demonstrations against the ongoing U.S. military buildup around Iraq, with organizers holding events in about 120 towns and cities to coincide with International Human Rights Day.
    But with polls showing most Americans support President George W. Bush's threat to use force to disarm the Gulf nation, anti-war rallies today are much different from the large, passionate protests during the Vietnam years. And Tuesday's small, scattered demonstrations seemed to reflect a fragmented opposition that has attracted little media attention.
    The biggest events drew a few hundred protesters.
    Organizers -- a range of religious, academic, business, women's and rights groups -- said they had not expected mass turnouts.
    Outside the United Nations in New York, dozens of anti-war protesters were arrested, during a peaceful rally demonstrating against the U.S's proposed war on Iraq.
    Religious leaders from across the broad spectrum of faiths gathered together to join anti-war protesters. Chanting, singing and reciting Muslim and Christian prayers, the several hundred strong rally urged for a peaceful settlement to the stand off between Iraq and the United States.
    Holding placards showing the faces of Iraqi children, the rally called upon the U.S to give the United Nations a chance to disarm Iraq before threatening war on the Iraqi people.
    Protester Bill Steyert said, "You know the weapons of mass destruction, even if they found them, they'd find something else it seems - to go in and have a war and I'm saying not in my name you're not."
    "Before deciding to spend billions of dollars in going some place else and killing somebody else's children we should figure out how to take care of our children first," Cheri Honkala said.
    After the hour long rally, the demonstrators took their protest to the United States Mission to the United Nations.
    Several dozen people chose to sit on the pavement outside the Mission chanting anti-war songs and be arrested. Scores of police were on hand, handcuffing the protesters and carrying them away in police vans. The protest was peaceful and police say the protesters will likely be released without charge.
    In Los Angeles, former "M*A*S*H" star Mike Farrell and Martin Sheen, who plays the U.S. president on NBC's "The West Wing," released a letter signed by more than 100 Hollywood celebrities urging the Bush administration to avoid war.
    "The American people deserve to know what the truth is, and they deserve to know before their children are put at risk, whether or not this is an appropriate action on behalf of the most powerful country in the history of the world,"
    Farrell told a press conference.
    Sheen said he believed America's mobilization for a possible war was driven by Bush's desire to "hand his father (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein's head." Former President George Bush was commander-in-chief during the 1991 Gulf War when victorious U.S. troops stopped short of ousting Saddam.
    "That's my own personal opinion. I don't know if that's true, I hope it's not, but I suspect it is," Sheen said.
    And in Washington, D.C., protesters chanting "Hell no, we won't go" and other slogans wandered through the streets handing out anti-war leaflets while a group of about twenty carrying anti-war posters gathered in front of U.S. military recruitment offices to contest what they say is an unfair effort to target low income recruits for an unnecessary war effort in Iraq.
    "It's all about oil. It's all about money and it's putting lives of innocent people on the line from this country and from abroad," said David, a student at American University in Washington, DC.
    The peaceful gathering became unruly when a few of the protesters tried to enter the recruitment office saying they wanted to enlist. The protesters had to be carried away by guards as traffic slowed and onlookers watched.
    Security guards told Reuters that no military recruiters were inside the recruitment office during the protests.
    President Bush has said the United States will lead a "coalition of the willing" to disarm Baghdad unless it complies with tough U.N. demands to dismantle any programs to make chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
    Saddam denies having any such weapons and has agreed to inspections by U.N. experts, now under way.
    In October, in the biggest U.S. anti-war demonstration so far, coordinated protests in Washington and San Francisco drew tens of thousands of people. But peace demonstrations here have been small compared to those abroad, where hundreds of thousands have protested in Paris, London and Rome.
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