WASHINGTON (AP) -- Fearing war could start in weeks, protesters are massing in Washington and cities around the country to press for a peaceful way out of the crisis with Iraq and an end to America's own weapons of mass destruction.
The weekend demonstrations coincide with America's military buildup in the Persian Gulf region and a time of remembrance for the nonviolent struggle embodied by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Even as U.S. military personnel ship out, protesters are packing Washington-bound buses and organizing local marches and vigils from Tampa, Florida to San Francisco, California.
"We are attacking a poor country that has enough problems," said Al Svitesic, a retired pile driver and World War II veteran who will be rallying in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania next week. "It is unjust."
The largest crowds are expected in the nation's capital, where President Bush and many in Congress are united on the move toward war and protest leaders hope they can draw tens of thousands, at least, to march in dissent.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush will be at his Camp David presidential retreat over the weekend, but has no problem with the protests.
"The president welcomes the fact that we are a democracy and that people in the United States, unlike Iraq, are free" to protest, he said. "The fact of the matter is the people who support the president are not going to take the streets" and demand Saddam to disarm.
Police said Friday they will be ready for trouble but don't expect much. They've been in close touch with demonstrators.
"They say it's going to be peaceful and our hopes and goals are not to make arrests," said Sgt. Joe Gentile, speaking for the force. "We've met with the organizers. They don't plan any civil disobedience."
Nonviolent civil disobedience was pledged by other demonstrators in a smaller rally planned Sunday outside the White House. Gentile said a "few arrests" were likely in that event.
The organization International Answer planned the national rally Saturday in Washington and one in San Francisco, exhorting war opponents everywhere to "stop the Bush administration from threatening and killing the people of the world who are not our enemy."
Polls suggest Americans are not in step with the anti-war movement but also are not sold on Bush's arguments for war.
In a Pew Research Center survey out Thursday, 53 percent of respondents said Bush has not explained the stakes that justify using military force against Iraq. Yet 76 percent said they would support war if nuclear, biological or chemical weapons were uncovered.
The protesters' focus is on America's weapons of mass destruction, not the ones inspectors are looking for in Iraq in a possible prelude to conflict.
The sense that war is close spurred the determination of many activists to get to Washington, despite snowy weather en route followed by a weekend of subfreezing temperatures in the capital.
Gerald Rudolph, director of a South Carolina group that sent one busload to the last large Washington rally, in October, said about twice as many people were going from his area this time.
"It's starting to reach visibility," he said of the anti-war movement. "Should we go to war, I think it'll just explode at that point." He leads the Carolina Peace Resource Center.
Nearly 500 people from Wisconsin signed up for bus travel to Washington. So did several hundred from upstate New York.
Ambitious weekend rallies were planned in Phoenix, Arizona in Portland, Oregon, and in Tampa, where protesters planned to gather outside the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, the arm of the Pentagon that would direct the Iraq war. In Pittsburgh, activists were hoping to draw several thousand to January 24-26 protests.
In San Francisco, the Internet-based group MoveOn.org released a TV commercial Thursday that depicts a girl plucking petals from a daisy and shows a nuclear mushroom cloud. The ad, being shown in 12 cities, re-creates the ominous "Daisy" campaign commercial of 1964 that President Johnson used against Republican opponent Barry Goldwater.
In a lighter but perhaps equally eye-popping tactic, protesters in the organization Baring Witness said they might take their clothes off and march down San Francisco's Market Street.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/17/antiwar.protests.ap/index.html
