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100,000 protest against Bush and Blair

A crowd of protesters occupy Trafalgar Square in London on Thursday during a demonstration against US President George W. Bush's visit to Britain. PHOTO: AP

Protesters came from every corner of Britain to vent their fury at US President George W. Bush, deriding him on their placards as everything from an empty-headed missile to a pretzel-munching chimp.

But police and protesters agreed that Thursday's massive march through London, though laced with anger towards Bush and his major ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was a model of peaceful behavior.

"We've had a very good-tempered march, and there have been no particular problems," said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Trotter, who oversaw the Metropolitan Police's deployment of more than 5,100 officers along the parade route to Trafalgar Square.

Police said they had arrested at least 67 people for a range of offenses including public disorder, drunkenness, writing graffiti and car crime during the president's three-day visit.

The Stop the War Coalition, which organized the main demonstration and several other smaller protests since Bush's arrival, claimed their efforts had forced the president to restrict his movements around London.

Protesters gather for the anti-Bush rally in central London on Thursday. PHOTO: AP

They concluded their show of force by knocking over a five-meter papier-mache statue of Bush, mocking the toppling of Saddam Hussein statues by US forces in Iraq.

"We occupied central London for the day and put George Bush under house arrest," said the march's chief steward, Chris Nineham.

"He came to London hoping for a big welcome. Well, only two people welcomed him: Tony Blair and the queen," he said.

Bush and Blair said at a joint news conference they respected the protesters' rights, but suggested they were hypocritical.

"Freedom is beautiful," Bush said.

"All I know is that people in Baghdad weren't allowed to do this until recent history," he said.

Thursday's march and rally mobilized between 100,000 and 110,000 people, police said, with a particularly large showing from university students and veteran left-wing critics of Israel.

Many waved handwritten placards and banners with hostile messages for Bush that included the crudest of slurs.

"Choke on it, monkey-boy," said one placard that pictured a jug-eared Bush eating a pretzel.

"Bush off to hell Zionist dog," demanded another.

Some demonstrators proffered overtly anti-US and anti-Jewish messages, such as upside-down US flags covered in Nazi swastikas or Stars of David.

But the march's vanguard also featured a group of about 50 US citizens living abroad.

One of their banners read "Proud of my country, ashamed of my president."

"I just felt I had to protest against Bush's policies and not sit at home fuming," said Therese Munn, who before moving to London lived in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Munn said many of her American friends had lost jobs during the US' economic downturn or were struggling to pay medical bills.

"I don't understand how Bush can justify spending billions extra on defense when these more basic needs of employment and medical care aren't being met," she said.

Abdul Rastagan, an American whose Afghan parents fled Kabul in 1979 when the Soviets invaded, said many of his friends back in Laguna Hills, California and the University of California in Los Angeles "seem oblivious" to the international outrage at the US-British invasion of Iraq.

Rastagan, 27, who has worked for three years as a pharmaceutical chemist in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, flew specially to London to join his first protest against the occupation of Iraq.

He accused Bush of "exploiting our grief post-September 11 to pursue his own long-standing agenda in Iraq."

He said that many Europeans had also become unreasonably one-sided.

Rastagan also said he was "getting sick of having to defend my country every time somebody hears I'm an American."

"The anti-Americanism in Sweden is unbelievable. The Swedes won't listen to the other side of the argument, and the same thing's happening all over Europe," he said.

"It's amazing how one person, Bush, could throw away so much good international feeling towards America. Somehow he's managed to do it," he said.
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