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Protesters at Bush ranch plan road trip to Washington

Posted on: Thursday, 25 August 2005, 17:57 CDT

By Adam Entous

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - Iraq war protester Cindy Sheehan, whose vigil near President George W. Bush's Texas ranch has become a symbol for the anti-war movement, said on Thursday she planned to take her cause on the road next month and shadow Bush back to Washington.

Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq last year, said the campaign against the war would not come to an end even if Bush agreed to meet with her.

"I'm glad to be back," said Sheehan, who returned to her camp outside Bush's ranch after going to California to care for her ailing mother.

"I'm just so honored that the universe chose me to be the spark that has set off a raging inferno" of anti-war sentiment, Sheehan said. "It's not going to end. If George Bush came out and spoke with me today and we went home, this wouldn't end."

But in contrast to the hundreds of supporters who turned out for earlier events at the campsite, only a few dozen were on hand on Thursday to witness an emotional Sheehan -- in a made-for-television ceremony -- place her son's combat boots next to a small cross at a symbolic gravesite for America's war dead.

Sheehan plans to continue her vigil following Bush's monthlong vacation in Crawford.

She said she would launch a bus tour from Crawford starting on September 1 that will converge on Washington, on September 24 and the group would then start a vigil in the capital.

Gold Star Families for Peace, a group Sheehan co-founded, announced that a television ad -- featuring Sheehan asking the president "How many American lives must be lost to justify this war?" -- would start airing on cable television, at an initial cost of $67,000.

Except for her time in California, Sheehan has been camped out near Bush's ranch since August 6 seeking a meeting with the president to ask him to explain what "noble cause" her 24-year-old son, Casey, died for last year.

Sheehan sought to rebut assertions by Bush that America owed it to the more than 1,800 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq to complete the mission.

"I know my son. And I know he would say, 'I don't want any more of my buddies killed just because I'm dead. I want my buddies to come home alive,"' Sheehan said.

She also rebuffed critics who said her message was "anti-American" and undercut the troops still in Iraq.

"I don't believe that. I believe that we as Americans, it's our right and responsibility as citizens of this country, when we know that there's a wrong, to try and correct it," she said.

"We didn't send them (troops) to invade a country and occupy a country that was no threat to the United States of America. We want them home... We want them to come home alive to their parents."

As part of an effort to counter rising anti-war sentiment, Bush on Wednesday quoted Tammy Pruett, whose husband and five sons all served in Iraq, as saying if something happened to one of them, they had fought for what they believed.

"I never ever, ever got up here and said ... I speak for every single military family," Sheehan said.

"If there is any family that says that they believe their child died for a noble cause, I say that that is your right if that helps you get through the day, if that helps you in your pain, because we might not have same politics, but trust me, we have the same pain."

Asked why she was not accompanied by more mothers of Iraq war dead, Sheehan said, "We're the only ones here right now. But there have been many dozens come through the camp so far."

A Harris poll released on Wednesday showed Bush's approval rating dropping to 40 percent, while 58 percent had a negative opinion. Other recent polls have shown growing unease among Americans with the Iraq war.

During the 1992 presidential campaign, Bush's father was trailed at rallies by people in chicken costumes, some with signs saying "Chicken George," because he refused to take part in debates on terms set by a debate commission.

Source: REUTERS

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