Agence France Reports on Protest in D.C.

Agence France-Presse
Thursday 01 February 2007


Washington - US anti-Iraq war activists, after a massive demonstration Saturday in Washington, are mobilizing this week to pressure lawmakers to stop the deployment of additional troops to Iraq.

The move comes as the US Senate is expected to vote on a no-confidence resolution next week against President George W. Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq.

VoteVets, an association of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, is running a television announcement based on the slogan, "If you support escalation, you don't support the troops," inverting a key argument the Bush administration uses to answer the plan's critics.

Bush announced in early January he would send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq, a move its detractors deem an "escalation" and which the Senate is currently debating.

"When it comes to Iraq, America is divided. On one hand, you've got two-thirds of the American people, a bipartisan majority in Congress, the Iraq Study Group and veterans like us, all opposed to the escalation.

"On the other hand, there's George Bush, who supports escalation," said the VoteVets soldiers, one of them missing a hand.

During the campaign for the November 7 legislative election, VoteVets ran television announcements opposing Republican lawmakers, whom they accused of not really supporting the troops.

On Wednesday, top Democrats and key Republicans in a Senate committee agreed on a bill that censures Bush's plan to boost US forces in the war zone.

The breakthrough measure means the White House could face an embarrassing - but ultimately symbolic - vote of no-confidence.

Drumming up public pressure, the political action group MoveOn has organized a massive lobbying campaign, asking Americans to flood their senators with phone calls, text messages and e-mails all day long Thursday to encourage them to oppose the troop reinforcements.

MoveOn has set a target of one million messages in the day.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of anti-Iraq war protesters rallied in Washington to demand that Congress end the war. It was the largest such demonstration in the capital since September 2005.

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