Thousands protest Iraq war on 3rd anniversary

‘Tapestry of resistance’
“I’m against this war, I’m against the torture,” said protester Martha Conrad, 54, of Chicago. “We’re doing this for the people of Iraq.”

One bystander, with a red, white and black Iraqi flag flung across his shoulders, said he came to show he backed Bush’s policies in Iraq. “I support freeing Iraqis from tyranny,” said 33-year-old Ryan Stiles of Chicago.

In Washington, a protester wearing a Bush mask and bearing fake blood on his hands waved to passing automobiles outside Vice President Dick Cheney’s residence, where about 200 people demonstrated against the war.

Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler of the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ said the rallies nationwide are a “tapestry of resistance.”

“Most people believe we aren’t crazy anymore,” he said.

‘Sense of betrayal’
In Concord, N.H., nearly 300 peace activists marched about a mile from a National Guard armory to the Statehouse.

“I feel a huge sense of betrayal that I went and risked my life for a lie,” said Joseph Turcott, 26, a former Marine who served in the invasion.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld answered critics of the war in a guest column in Sunday’s editions of The Washington Post, asserting that if Americans were to turn away from Iraq, it would be “the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis.”

“It would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination because it was too hard or too tough or we didn’t have the patience to work with them as they built free countries,” he wrote.

Rumsfeld cited rising voter participation in successive Iraqi elections, support for security forces shown by Sunni religious leaders once sympathetic to the insurgency, and rising competence of Iraqi troops as evidence of progress since the invasion three years ago.

“The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq,” he said.

In demonstrations in several cities worldwide, protesters carried posters showing pictures of Bush, calling him the “World’s No. 1 terrorist.”

International demonstrations
In Turkey, where opposition to the war cuts across all political stripes, about 3,000 protesters gathered in Istanbul, police said. “Murderer USA,” read a sign in Taksim Square.

In Copenhagen, Denmark, more than 2,000 demonstrators marched from the U.S. Embassy to the British Embassy, demanding the withdrawal of 530 Danish troops from southern Iraq.

AFP-Getty Images Two demonstrators take part in a rally against the war in Iraq in Athens, Greece, on Saturday.

Britain’s defense chief earlier urged demonstrators in London to support the Iraqi people and condemn terrorism.

“When people go on the streets of London today, I do wish just occasionally they would go out in support of the United Nations, the Iraqi people and the Iraqi democrats and condemn terrorists,” Defense Secretary John Reid told British Broadcasting Corp. radio during a visit to Iraq.

Members of the Stop the War Coalition, the organizers of the London march, had little sympathy for Reed’s remarks. “Every day you hear of new deaths. Tony Blair has actually made Iraq a worse place for the Iraqi people,” said Rose Gentle, whose soldier son Gordon, 19, was killed by a roadside bomb last year in Basra, southern Iraq.

MORE FROM INVASION IRAQ: THREE YEARS LATER

Invasion Iraq: Three Years Later Section Front

Audio/video interactive: Do you remember? Bush: Strategy in Iraq working NBC: Arab attitudes go from bad to worse Iraqis mark ‘painful anniversary’ Thousands globally protest Iraq war NBC analysis: Iraq, 3 years later WP: Vets back from Iraq with stories to tell Cost of Iraq war could surpass $1 trillion Special video feature: Iraq then and now Day by day, images of a 4-week invasion Invasion Iraq: Three Years Later Section Front   Add Invasion Iraq: Three Years Later headlines to your news reader: