Hundreds in Sacramento Protest Iraq War on 3rd Anniversary

(Sacramento, CA March 18, 2006) The culmination of three consecutive Saturday anti-war/anti-Bush rallies was held in Sacramento on March 18. Over 400 Sacramento activists gathered at 16th & Broadway to mark the third anniversary of the U. S-led illegal aggression against the sovereign nation of Iraq.

The rally was sponsored by the Not in Our Name Coalition/Sacramento, Sacramento Coalition to End the War, Sacramento for Democracy Veterans for Peace/Chapter 87, Stephen and Virginia Pearcy, Physicians for Social Responsibility/Sacramento Chapter, Code Pink/Davis Chapter, Code Pink/Sacramento Chapter, Grandmothers for Peace/Sacramento, and the MFSO Capital Region.

This series of Saturday rallies, which started on March 4, were multi-national, multi-issue protests focusing on the illegal, bungled occupation of Iraq, now slipping into full blown-civil war.

The third anniversary of the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history” (retired Gen. William Odom) coincides with the Pentagon’s announcement of three Americans' deaths in Iraq, bringing the U. S. military casualty total to at least 2,315 dead and 17,100 wounded since the beginning of the war in March 2003. Estimates of the total number of dead in Iraq in consequence of the war are as high as 500,000.

Three years into the war based on lies, oil and imperialism, about two out of three Americans are against it. Bush’s approval ratings have dropped to 33% (Nixon resigned with a 29% approval).

Even if the U.S. exits Iraq within the next three years, total direct and indirect costs to U.S. taxpayers will be more than $400 billion, and some estimates put the total economic impact at up to $2 trillion.

"For misleading the American people and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C. sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial." (Martin Van Creveld, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem who is considered one of the world's foremost military historians.)