Protests mark 2,000th US fatality in Iraq

Protesters across the United States have taken part in hundreds of
vigils and rallies to mark the 2,000th US military death in Iraq.

Anti-war activists say their movement is rapidly growing in strength
and now speaks for a majority of Americans who believe President George W
Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was a mistake.

The death last weekend of a soldier, wounded in combat in the southern
Iraqi city of Samarra earlier this month, pushed the toll to 2,000.

"We’re seeing rapid changes in public opinion in favour of ending the
war and bringing back the troops and it’s beginning to be reflected in
Congress," Phyllis Bennis of the anti-war Institute for Policy Studies
said.

"The anti-war position is no longer held exclusively for activists. It
is beginning to give voice to the majority in this country," she said.

Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry, who lost to Mr Bush in
last year’s presidential election, called for 20,000 troops to be brought
home over the Christmas holidays.

On the Republican side, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel said the Iraq
situation was a mess and the country needed a new strategy.

"The longer the United States stays ...the more we will be seen as
oppressors and occupiers and the more we will attract terrorists as we are
now," he said.

Cindy Sheehan, the mother who made her soldier son’s death a symbol of
the anti-war movement, led a group of protesters to visit military
graves at Arlington National Cemetery.

Her vigil outside Mr Bush’s Texas ranch during the summer re-energised
the anti-war movement but it has remained loosely organised.

Later, Ms Sheehan planned to lead a rally outside the White House. Her
son, Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed on April 4, 2004.

More than 15,000 American troops have also been wounded in combat in
the war, which began in March 2003. Reuters