BAGHDAD: More than 10,000 supporters of the radical anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad's Firdos Square on Friday to protest the Iraqi government plan to sign a security agreement which would maintain American troops in the country for up to three years. With powerful symbolism, demonstrators hanged an effigy of President George W. Bush from the plinth that once supported the statue of Saddam Hussein that was toppled after Baghdad to U.S. troops on April 9, 2003. Preachers and political leaders supporting Sadr erected their podium in the same colonnaded traffic circle. The Iraqi crowd applauded the downfall of Hussein's regime. To drive home their point, the cleric's supporters placed a black hood over the effigy of President Bush. They put a whip in his right hand and, in his left, a briefcase on which were written the words "the security agreement is shame and dishonor." The black hood was a reference to the execution of Saddam Hussein on Dec. 30, 2006.
BAGHDAD: More than 10,000 supporters of the radical anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad's Firdos Square on Friday to protest the Iraqi government plan to sign a security agreement which would maintain American troops in the country for up to three years.
With powerful symbolism, demonstrators hanged an effigy of President George W. Bush from the plinth that once supported the statue of Saddam Hussein that was toppled after Baghdad to U.S. troops on April 9, 2003.
Preachers and political leaders supporting Sadr erected their podium in the same colonnaded traffic circle. The Iraqi crowd applauded the downfall of Hussein's regime. To drive home their point, the cleric's supporters placed a black hood over the effigy of President Bush. They put a whip in his right hand and, in his left, a briefcase on which were written the words "the security agreement is shame and dishonor."
The black hood was a reference to the execution of Saddam Hussein on Dec. 30, 2006.
