Thursday, February 24, 2005

Bush Is The No. 1 Terrorist in Germany

MAINZ, Germany (Reuters) - About 12,000 protesters, many carrying banners reading "Bush go home," "No. 1 Terrorist" and "Warmonger," marched through the German city of Mainz on Wednesday, but were mostly kept away from the visiting U.S. president.

The official rally, which was twice as big as expected, never got within earshot of President Bush, but a small group of protestors rushed toward his car as he left to visit a U.S. base in nearby Wiesbaden. Police wrestled several demonstrators to the ground and led them away in handcuffs, a Reuters witness said.

Bush was visiting Germany for the first time since the 2003 Iraq war, which Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and most Germans opposed.

"I'm disgusted by the Iraqi war Bush started that has cost thousands of civilian lives," said Thomas Odenweller, 49, a computer technician. "Now he's trying to normalize relations with Europe. It must be stopped."

Ignoring snow and freezing temperatures, the demonstrators held banners chastising Bush in English with slogans such as: "You can bomb the world to pieces but not into peace." Many had pre-printed posters reading: "Bush, No. 1 Terrorist."

Before the march, which Mainz police said was one of the largest ever in the city of about 300,000, one speaker told the crowd: "Mr. Bush, please leave our country. You started an illegal war against Iraq."

German police confiscated one poster that read: "We had our Hitler, now you have yours."
Some protesters praised Schroeder for his anti-war stance.

"Schroeder's opposition to the Iraq war made me so proud to be German," said Helmut Bach, 50, a pilot who marched with his 20-year-old daughter. "That's why I voted for him."

Several protesters wearing fake U.S. army uniforms pulled a trailer with dummies of blood-covered Iraq prisoners impaled on iron bars under a banner: "We don't want your type of freedom."