WASHINGTON, 14 January 2003 — Thousands of Americans from around the country plan to unite in Washington this Saturday for a national anti-Iraq war protest.

Organizers believe this is their last chance to for the anti-war activists to protest the Bush Administration’s possible war against Iraq.

This weekend’s protest and rally follows a similar demonstration last October, when about 100,000 people from around the US also gathered in Washington to protest the US position on Iraq. Both police and organizers said October’s rally was the largest antiwar demonstration in the nation’s capital since the 1970s protest against the Vietnam War.

Despite the season’s unusually bitter cold, organizers for this weekend’s protest predict the crowd will be bigger than the October march, due to better grassroots organizing.

About 220 organizing centers in 45 states are getting the word out and organizing transportation about the demonstration, ANSWER organizer Sarah Sloan told journalists.

ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), the organizers of the anti-Iraq war protests, said tens of thousands of Americans are planning to arrive for the protest, and local organizers from Ohio to Texas to New York have chartered buses, car caravans and air flights to Washington.

The protest is scheduled to coincide over Martin Luther King weekend, a national holiday.

“Thousands of people are coming to Washington, DC, to honor Dr. King and his legacy by opposing another criminal war — this time in the Middle East — and by demanding instead that these hundreds of billions of dollars be spent on jobs, education, housing, healthcare and to meet human needs,” said the organizers. (ANSWER’s website is at www.internationalanswer.org.)

“Saturday’s demonstration is important because it will make Americans, who are basically unfamiliar with the issues, to start asking questions. Such as why so many people are making the effort to go to Washington for this demonstration,” said Kathy Kelly, coordinator of Voices in the Wilderness, a group which has openly challenged the economic sanctions against Iraq.

“The demonstration is crucial because there is a lot of misunderstanding that could lead people to support warfare in Iraq with out knowing answers to basic questions about why the Bush Administration wants to go to war against Iraq,” Kelly told Arab News from her office in Chicago.

Kelly said little information about the misery that’s been caused by UN sanctions has been made available to the American public. “It’s very hard to understand why you would punish children to death because of sanctions. I think if the average American knew about the realities on the ground in Iraq, they would be very disturbed. I’m not a supporter of Saddam Hussein, but the American people need to know the truth.”