Protesters Draw Link Between Katrina and Iraq War
U.S. troops fighting an unexpectedly stubborn insurgency in Iraq should come home to help face domestic challenges like the unprecedented humanitarian relief and recovery effort on the Gulf Coast, said the activists, who will stage a march on Washington this weekend.
When Sheehan later spoke in Manhattan's Union Square to a group of about 200 anti-war protesters, New York police broke up the rally and arrested a man over a dispute about whether their permit allowed amplified sound.
Morrigan Phillips, spokeswoman for the Bring Them Home Now Tour, which has been stopping in towns across America on its way to the march in Washington, said the arrest was the first since the group began its campaign earlier this summer.
Leaders of the coalition organizing the September 24-26 protest in Washington include Sheehan, who gained international fame by camping out for weeks outside Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.
The anti-war group United for Peace and Justice, spearheading the march on Washington, said National Guard troops and materiel deployed in Iraq were needed to respond to the tragedy in and around New Orleans.
Sheehan is the star attraction for the three-day protest, which will include nonviolent acts of civil disobedience at the White House and an interfaith religious service, organizers said.
After her soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq, Sheehan demanded to meet with Bush while he vacationed in Texas so he could explain why U.S. troops were not being withdrawn from Iraq.
Bush, who had met briefly with Sheehan on a previous occasion, has declined to meet with her again.
"We were alarmed to hear the first company to get a contract in the rebuilding of New Orleans was Halliburton, another nonbid contract," said Leslie Cagan of United for Peace and Justice, which bills itself as the largest anti-war coalition in the United States.
The largest U.S. contractor in Iraq, Halliburton Co.'s subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root has been given a $29.8 million contract to rebuild Navy bases along the Katrina-battered Gulf Coast.
Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton, whose subsidiary secured no-bid contracts in Iraq after the United States toppled Saddam Hussein.
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