IRAQ: PROTESTS

LA Times: Baghdad: Hundreds Of Thousands Protest American Invasion and Occupation Of Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Chanting “Death to America” and burning effigies of President Bush and Saddam Hussein, tens of thousands of Iraqis flooded central Baghdad on Saturday in what police called the largest anti-American protest since the fall of Baghdad, the capital, exactly two years ago.The peaceful demonstration by angry young followers of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr underscored the United States’ accomplishments and its failures since the end of the war.Once staunch supporters of the U.S. invasion to oust the dictator who ruthlessly suppressed them, many Shiite Arabs in Iraq have grown so frustrated by the lingering military occupation, with its checkpoints, raids and use of force, that they took to the streets to call for a deadline for troop withdrawal.


Riverbendblog: The Cruel Month...

Thousands were demonstrating today all over the country. Many areas in Baghdad were cut off today for security reasons and to accomodate the demonstrators, I suppose. There were some Sunni demonstrations but the large majority of demonstrators were actually Shia and followers of Al Sadr. They came from all over Baghdad and met up in Firdaws Square- the supposed square of liberation. They were in the thousands. None of the news channels were actually covering it. Jazeera showed fragments of the protests in the afternoon but everyone else seemed to busy with some other news story


In Pictures: Iraqi's Protest Against American Occupation


Juan Cole: Up to 300,000 Demonstrate in Baghdad

Edmund Sanders reports that the crowds in downtown Baghdad protesting the US troop presence in the country may have been as large as 300,000. If it were even half that, these would be the largest popular demonstrations in Iraq since 1958! To any extent that they show popular sentiment shifting in Shiite areas to Muqtada al-Sadr's position on the American presence, they would indicate that he is winning politically even though the US defeated his militia militarily. Big demonstrations were also held in Ramadi and in Najaf. In Baghad, Shaikh Mu'ayyad al-Khazraji, a Sadr aide, said that the demonstrations would continue, to pressure the parliament to demand a US withdrawal.