Iraqis protest US military’s presence
Gates’s comment angers thousands
BAGHDAD — A day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested that American troops could remain here for years, tens of thousands of protesters allied with Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical anti-American Shi’ite cleric, flooded the streets demanding an end to the American military presence.
The protests were scheduled before Gates’s comments — made on Friday during a visit to troops in northern Iraq — although his statements may have fueled some of the day’s fervor. The protesters were whipped up by comments drafted by Sadr, who is continuing his religious studies in Iran but sent a message to the crowd threatening to reconstitute his militia, the Mahdi Army, if the American military did not leave this year.
“The first thing we will do is escalate the military resistance activity and reactivate the Mahdi Army in a new statement which will be published later,’’ Sadr’s representative, Salah al-Obaidi, told the crowd. “Second is to escalate the peaceful and public resistance through sit-ins.’’
A demonstration against the American invasion is held each April 9, the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad in 2003 and the date when Iraqis, with the help of American Marines, pulled down a statue of the dictator Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square in Baghdad.
Posters that proclaimed “Down with America’’ were distributed to the crowds, and some people burned American flags and chanted slogans like “Get out! Get out! America the great devil!’’ Others spoke of their “religious duty’’ to “expel the occupier.’’
But the event — an annual rite of the Shi’ite underclass loyal to Sadr — took on more political importance this year because it came amid the debate here and in Washington about whether American troops will leave on schedule by the end of the year or stay on in some capacity.
The departure date was set by a security agreement that binds both countries. Under the terms of the security agreement, the Iraqi government would have to ask the United States to stay on.
“We want them to get out of the country,’’ said Sheik Ahmed al-Hasnawi, one of the event’s organizers. “It’s the last year for them.’’
“We will expel the occupier,’’ said Ali Husain, a student.
Similar protests, although drawing much smaller numbers, took place in Sunni districts. On Friday after prayers, demonstrators in Azamiyah, a Sunni stronghold in Baghdad, chanted, “Leave, leave, occupier!’’ And a few hundred people demonstrated yesterday against the Americans in Ramadi, in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province
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