IRAQ

Chinapost: Anti-American protests are intensifying in Iraq

Anti-American protests intensified here and in southern Iraq on Tuesday, as U.S. forces struggled with the delicate task of rebuilding the country after toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Exasperated U.S. military officials tried to hamper the media from covering new demonstrations in Baghdad while some 20,000 people in the Shiite Muslim bastion of Nasiriyah railed against a U.S.-staged meeting on Iraq's future.

The protests came as the Americans delivered a first progress report in their effort to restore Iraq to normalcy and head off a chorus of criticism over continued lawlessness and a lack of basic services.

Some 200-300 Iraqis gathered Tuesday outside the Palestine Hotel, where the U.S. Marines have set up an operations base, for a third straight day of protests against the U.S. occupation.

For the first time, visibly angered U.S. military officials sought to distance the media from the protest, moving reporters and cameras about 30 meters from the barbed-wired entrance to the hotel.

"We want you to pull back to the back of the hotel because the Iraqis are only performing because the media are here," said a Marine colonel who wore the name Zarcone but would not give his first name or title.