Chill doesn't cool fury over U.S. stand on Iraq

Washington Post
By Manny Fernandez and Justin Blum
January 19, 2003

Tens of thousands of antiwar demonstrators converged on Washington yesterday, making a thunderous presence in the bitter cold and assembling in the shadow of the Capitol dome to oppose a U.S. military strike against Iraq.

Throughout a morning rally on the Mall and an afternoon march to the Washington Navy Yard in Southeast, activists criticized the Bush administration for rushing into a war that they claimed would kill thousands of Iraqi civilians, spell disaster for the national economy and set a dangerous and unjustified first-strike precedent for U.S. foreign policy.

They delivered that message on a day when being outdoors tested everyone's endurance. Men, women and children fought off temperatures no higher than 24 degrees in ski masks and goggles, stashes of hot soup in containers in their backpacks. Many sneaked away momentarily to warm up on an idling bus or to grab a cup of coffee.

"The world is cold, but our hearts are warm," Jesse Jackson told the crowd to applause. He was one of many speakers, who included civil rights leader Al Sharpton from New York, actress Jessica Lange and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.).

Organizers of the demonstration, the activist coalition International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), said the protest was larger than one they sponsored in Washington in October. District police officials suggested then that about 100,000 attended, and although some organizers agreed, they have since put the number closer to 200,000. This time, they said, the turnout was 500,000. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey would not provide an estimate but said it was bigger than October's. "It's one of the biggest ones we've had, certainly in recent times," he said.

Local and federal police presence was light, and Ramsey said there were only a couple of minor incidents. A U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman reported two arrests, one for disorderly conduct and one for writing graffiti on a Library of Congress building.

D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department officials said three people were taken to hospitals, including a woman who had a seizure. The health problems were not believed serious and were not weather-related, officials said.

Thousands attended similar rallies in cities including San Francisco and Tampa as well as in other countries. Organizers selected yesterday for protests partly because of the approaching Jan. 27 deadline for the first major report by weapons inspectors in Iraq, a date many activists said could trigger war. The events were also meant to mark the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and many speakers invoked his legacy.

Regardless of the exact number, the crowd yesterday on the Mall was the largest antiwar demonstration here since the Vietnam era. For the 11 a.m. rally, much of four long blocks of the Mall was packed, shoulder-to-shoulder in many sections from Third to Seventh streets SW between Madison and Jefferson drives. The first marchers stepped off about 1:30 p.m., and when many had begun reaching the Navy Yard more than two dozen blocks away about an hour later, others were still leaving the rally site.

Those who hoped that President Bush and much of Congress would witness the thousands in the streets of Washington were out of luck; the president was at Camp David, and most members of Congress were away for the weekend.

It hardly mattered to some. Marchers spoke of a surging grass-roots political power.

"The antiwar movement is now at a whole new level," said Tony Murphy, a spokesman for International ANSWER, which was formed three days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a response to the Bush administration's war on terrorism at home and abroad. "Now we're talking about a force that can really stop the war. It's not just a hopeful attitude. It's a real sense that it's possible," he said.

The demonstration drew people of all walks of life, from both coasts and all points in between, as scores of college students, 30-something families and senior citizens traveled to Washington by charter bus, car caravan, plane, train and -- in the case of one determined Iowa State University student -- foot.

On the snow-covered grass of the Mall and in the narrow streets along the march through Southeast Washington, handwritten signs and banners bobbed, distilling the day: "War is not a Christian belief," "No blood for oil," "Freezing out here for peace."

"We want peace," said Mari Anderson, 59, of Titusville, Fla., a chemical specialist at a power plant who drove 14 hours to Washington with a friend and walked along Pennsylvania Avenue NW yesterday morning to join the throngs rallying on the Mall. "We want diplomatic solutions. Saddam Hussein hasn't done anything to us in 11 years."

Alex Maertens, 30, of Southeast Washington, made time in her day to join the protest. "I don't like having to march with people who are sentimental fools, but I happen to think that this war is an immense mistake," said Maertens, a toxicologist studying at Johns Hopkins University. "The burden of proof is on us, and that case has not been established."

Marching with a packed crowd along Independence Avenue SE was Nancy Paton, 49, who came to Washington with her 23-year-old daughter on one of four busloads from her Westland, Mich., interfaith church. Paton said she had never been part of a political protest before. "I kind of felt powerless to do anything about this proposed war on Iraq," she said, adding that she was moved to join the protest because the war "is more about oil than terrorism. After this war in Afghanistan, it seems like Bush just wants to keep going."

Through the day, the debate over whether the United States should use military force against Hussein spilled onto the sidewalks and street corners of the city's center and outside the gates of the Navy Yard. Counter-protesters, some organized and others not, offered their opinion of the antiwar activists.

"You guys should go get a job," said a man traveling in a black sport utility vehicle that pulled over briefly to heckle protesters on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Later in the day, on the Pennsylvania Avenue SE march route, a group of people sharing a bottle of champagne on a second-floor balcony displayed a sign reading, "Hippies Go Home." Protesters responded, "We are home."

When the march approached Eighth and I streets SE outside the U.S. Marine Corps barracks, about 50 counter-protesters -- including veterans -- continued their rally, chanting "Swim to Cuba" and "We gave peace a chance; We got 9/11." In return, the protesters shouted, "We don't want your oil war." The march stopped for 10 minutes, and Ramsey walked up and down the lines of officers separating the marchers and the counter-protesters.

Exchanges proved far more civil elsewhere.

On a Blue Line Metro train headed for the Mall, one goateed, middle-aged man loudly lectured other protesters -- and everyone else within earshot -- about the history of Iraq and how the United States was complicit in every development there in the past 50 years. Some fellow riders listened intently and thanked him as he left the train at Smithsonian Station.

Activists cited a number of reasons why -- in the middle of a numbingly cold Washington winter, for a $35 to $110 seat on a packed bus spending anywhere from a couple to more than 24 hours on the road -- they came to the capital. Some said they were pacifists opposed to war no matter the circumstance. Others said they were moved to action because they felt the Bush administration was rushing into an unjustified war with Iraq and that they viewed the march as a kind of election in which to cast a vote through their presence.

"I am here to tell people who might have questions about the war that they're not alone," said Brian Harrison, 21, a Texas college student who took a 27-hour, charter-bus ride from Houston to join the demonstration. "So many people are so riled up about the war that they're willing to travel great distances to physically testify their opposition."

The cold, though, was never far from the minds of the protesters, including Harrison, who said he had never seen snow on the ground. "I've actually never been this cold before," he said.

But Shelby Berkowitz, 32, a graduate student in psychology from Lansing, Mich., asked, "What's the suffering from standing out in the cold compared to the suffering inflicted by U.S. policies in the world?"

Antiwar demonstrations are scheduled to continue today in Washington. Youths and students who took part in yesterday's march plan their own demonstration, with an 11 a.m. rally and march from the Department of Justice to the White House.

Civil disobedience is planned at the White House by D.C. Iraq Pledge of Resistance and United for Peace. After an 11:30 a.m. rally at Farragut Square, hundreds will risk arrest to show their opposition to war, organizers said.

At the end of yesterday's march about 5 p.m., protesters said they were pleased and hoped that the Bush administration would hear their message. "It turned out very well despite the weather," said Jon Mays, 32, an engineer from Clinton. "It made me proud that we have people that are coming together for one cause."

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