200 arrested in US anti-war protests

More than 200 people were arrested across the United States on Wednesday as protesters marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq obstructed downtown traffic and tried to block access to government offices.

There were 32 arrests in Washington after demonstrators attempted to block entrances to the Internal Revenue Service, while 30 others were arrested outside a congressional office building, police said.

Protesters had hoped to shut down the IRS, the U.S. tax collection agency, to highlight the cost of the war. Police cleared the building’s entrances within an hour.

In San Francisco, long a center of anti-Iraq war sentiment, police arrested more than 100 people who protested through the day along Market Street in the central business district, a spokesman said.

Sgt. Steve Maninna said officers had arrested 143 people on charges including trespassing, resisting arrest and obstructing traffic.

Four women were also detained for hanging a large banner off the city’s famous Golden Gate Bridge and then released, said bridge spokeswoman Mary Currie.

On Washington’s National Mall, about 100 protesters carried signs that read: “The Endlessness Justifies the Meaninglessness” and waved upside-down U.S. flags, a traditional sign of distress.

“Bush and Cheney, leaders failed, Bush and Cheney belong in jail,” they chanted, referring to U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

One hour after the IRS standoff, several dozen protesters waved signs that read: “Stop Paying to Kill” and “How Much Longer?” as a ragtag brass band played. IRS employees were easily able to enter the building.

“We wanted to put our bodies between the money and what that money goes to fund — the war, the occupation, the bombs,” said Frida Berrigan, an organizer with the War Resisters League.

The war has cost the United States $500 billion since the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein began in March 2003 and is a major issue in November’s U.S. presidential election. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and millions more displaced, with almost 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed.

BLOCKING TRAFFIC

Later, scores of noisy protesters blocked a busy intersection in Washington’s business district. They picketed in front of the offices of The Washington Post and threw red paint on the building that houses the Examiner newspaper and Bechtel National Inc, which has handled major reconstruction projects in Iraq.

In New York, about 30 members of the “Granny Peace Brigade” gathered in Times Square, knitting in hand, to demand troops be brought home now.

“We’re out here to show people that this war is madness. We never should have gotten into this war in the first place,” said Shirley Weiner, 80.

Police in Boston arrested five people who blocked access to a military recruitment center by lying on a sidewalk dressed as slain Iraqi civilians, an Iraqi mourner, a slain U.S. soldier and an American citizen in mourning.

“We went to this military recruiting station today because we want to see the war end immediately,” said activist Joe Previtera in a statement. “Silently waiting for Congress to act on this war in 2009 will condemn thousands more people to injury and senseless death. Enough is enough.”

Revote donors linked to Clinton

Ten wealthy Democrats have offered to pay for a new presidential primary in Michigan — all with ties to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who showed up in the state Wednesday seeking a revote.

Five of the donors are listed on Clinton’s campaign website as among her major fundraisers. All 10 have contributed to Clinton’s presidential or Senate campaigns or the races run by former president Bill Clinton, according to federal data compiled by the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics.

The Michigan revote donors — including New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos and financier Roger Altman — have offered to put up $12 million to pay for a new election in June.

Corzine and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, both Clinton backers, released the donors’ names in a letter to Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The letter was aimed at demonstrating support for a do-over, so the state’s voters could have a say in the hotly contested nomination battle. Barack Obama’s supporters in the state have raised questions about logistics and costs.

Michigan Democrats held a primary Jan. 15, but no convention delegates were awarded because the date violated national party rules. Clinton won that vote. Obama took his name off the ballot in deference to the national party and other states that did not schedule early primaries.

Clinton changed her schedule to fly to Detroit Wednesday and challenged Obama to support a do-over. He “speaks passionately on the campaign trail about empowering the American people,” Clinton said. “I’m urging him to match those words with actions.”

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said any notion that potential Michigan donors sought to help Clinton was “absurd.”

MICHIGAN: Democratic rivals duel over do-over

“Of course, only Clinton people have come forward to say they are willing to finance it because Obama is opposing it,” he said. “We would be thrilled if Sen. Obama would direct some of his supporters” to help.

Obama, who leads Clinton in delegates, has not said whether he will back a new Michigan primary.

Wealthy individuals can legally contribute unlimited sums to state political efforts but can’t give more than $4,600 to federal candidates for primary and general elections. Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the donor list is “even more evidence that Clinton is willing to do absolutely anything to get elected.”

Billionaire financier George Soros, an Obama supporter, declined Rendell’s request to help foot the bill for a Michigan revote.

Soros “does not support holding another primary in Michigan,” spokesman Michael Vachon said.

Obama: Count on me to end Iraq war

Sen. Barack Obama suggested Wednesday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton could not be trusted to end the Iraq war because she only started opposing it when she began her bid for president.

In a speech not far from North Carolina’s Fort Bragg military base, the Democratic presidential hopeful told military families and local officials that the war has emboldened al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Iran and North Korea.

“Ask yourself,” Obama told the crowd, “Who do you trust to end a war: someone who opposed the war from the beginning, or someone who started opposing it when they started preparing a run for president?”

Obama used the five-year anniversary of the Iraq invasion to again cast himself as the only true anti-war candidate, one who openly opposed the invasion as a state lawmaker. He renewed criticism of Clinton for voting to authorize the use of force against Iraq.

Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer responded: “The reality is that Senator Obama took practically no action to end the war until he started his White House run while Senator Clinton has been a consistent critic of Iraq for many years.”
Obama also teased likely Republican nominee John McCain for a foreign policy gaffe Tuesday in which McCain, touring the Middle East, said several times that Iran was training al-Qaeda in Iraq. Iran is a predominantly Shiite Muslim country and has been at pains to close its borders to al-Qaeda fighters of the rival Sunni sect. After another senator on the trip, Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, whispered in his ear, McCain corrected himself to say Iran was training Shiite militants.

“Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no al-Qaeda ties,” Obama said to laughter and applause. “Maybe that is why he completely fails to understand that the war in Iraq has done more to embolden America’s enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades.”

In the days before she won primaries in Texas and Ohio, Clinton argued that she was better prepared to be commander in chief and broadcast a television ad that asked who could handle a middle-of-the-night crisis. Obama countered that Clinton had bungled her crisis moment when she voted to authorize military force to oust Saddam Hussein.

Obama alluded to that ad in his speech.

“What we need in our next commander in chief is not a stubborn refusal to acknowledge reality or empty rhetoric about 3 a.m. phone calls,” he said. “What we need is a pragmatic strategy that focuses on fighting our real enemies, rebuilding alliances and renewing our engagement with the world’s people.”

He said Clinton and McCain talk tough on national security yet make decisions that leave the country less secure.

“This is why the judgment that matters most on Iraq — and on any decision to deploy military force — is the judgment made first,” Obama said.

Special forces from Fort Bragg were among the first soldiers in Iraq during the 2003 invasion and its paratroopers led last year’s troop increase. President Bush visited the base to deliver his 2005 Independence Day speech, in which he warned that setting a timetable to withdraw from Iraq would only embolden terrorists.

McCain has issued similar remarks and Obama squarely rejected them.

“These are the mistaken and misleading arguments we hear from those who have failed to demonstrate how the war in Iraq has made us safer,” Obama said.

Mark Salter, a senior adviser to McCain, responded: “John McCain wants American forces to come home when our clear and serious interests at stake in Iraq, which nearly 4,000 Americans have given their lives to secure, are truly safe, when al-Qaeda is defeated; Iran’s influence is contained, and the potential for a truly cataclysmic civil war in Iraq is remote. That, I think, is what is called ‘making us safer.”‘

Obama also defended his contention that the United States should act on intelligence about top terrorist targets in Pakistan even if President Pervez Musharraf refuses — a statement last year that drew criticism from Republicans.

“We have a security gap when candidates say they will follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, but refuse to follow him where he actually goes,” Obama said, referring to McCain’s vow to chase down bin Laden.

North Carolina holds its primary May 6. Obama traveled to Charlotte on Wednesday evening for a town-hall meeting and a fundraiser.