WASHINGTON Leaders of the anti-Iraq war movement expect 100,000 demonstrators to descend on Washington this weekend. But as it prepares to encircle the White House, the antiwar coalition is quietly divided.
Some major groups, including the organizers of the protest, United for Peace and Justice, demand that the United States withdraw immediately from Iraq. Others, including MoveOn.org, back resolutions calling for a pullout starting in late 2006.
At a moment when the groups say they are steadily gaining support, each faction asserts that the other's message is undermining their common cause.
In a statement last month, the Green Party of the United States accused MoveOn.org of having "undermined such antiwar efforts by refusing to endorse an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq."
A spokesman for the Green Party, Scott McLarty, explained that his faction believed that MoveOn.org was giving cover to Democrats who have criticized the war but have not supported proposals to cut off funding.
"The more we prolong the occupation, the more dead American soldiers and the more dead Iraqi civilians there will be," McLarty said. "It's going to be a disaster whether we stay there or whether we don't stay there. And by staying there, we are aggravating the disaster."
Tom Matzzie, the Washington director for MoveOn.org, agreed that the United States should leave Iraq as soon as possible, but argued that the quickest way to end the war was to build support in Congress for a specific date to remove the troops.
"As political organizers, we think the best way to bring our folks home from Iraq is to create a political dynamic where Republicans are defecting from their leadership and Democrats are making Iraq a political liability for the Republicans," Matzzie said.
The internal discord threatens the coalition just as its leaders believe it is on the cusp of becoming a force in mainstream politics.
Many antiwar activists trace their emergence to a series of events over the summer. The sequence began in May when The Times of London published a leaked British intelligence document known as the Downing Street Memo. The memo said that nine months before the Iraq invasion, "the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy" of removing Saddam Hussein.
Opponents saw the document as proof that the Bush administration had misled the country about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Then, in June, two Republican representatives - Ron Paul of Texas and Walter Jones of North Carolina - joined Democrats in sponsoring the first bipartisan resolution calling on President George W. Bush to start bringing American troops home by October 2006. That same day, the "Out of Iraq Caucus" was formed by a congressional panel.
Public grief rose after one Ohio-based Marine battalion suffered several casualties in late July and early August. Then Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother of a slain marine, started a vigil outside Bush's ranch near Crawford, Texas.
Then Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. The continued cost of the military involvement in Iraq was thrown into relief both by the projected price of rebuilding at home and the slow response in rescuing residents, which some critics attributed to crucial National Guard equipment having been sent overseas.
Though anyone opposed to Bush's Iraq policy is welcome to join the protests, the organizers say, the focus will be immediate withdrawal. "There is a loud cry, which is getting louder from the grass roots, to end this war and bring the troops home now," said Bill Dobbs of United for Peace and Justice.
Bryan Bender contributed reporting for this article .
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/23/news/antiwar.php
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