08:49 AM PST on Monday, March 20, 2006

By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER, Associated Press Writer

A peaceful but passionate parade of protesters marched through downtown Portland Sunday to denounce the war in Iraq as it enters its fourth year.

AP photo

Anti-war protesters demonstrate Sunday in Portland against the war in Iraq.

The rally and march, named "End the War, Begin the Peace," was co-sponsored by some 160 organizations. Portland police estimated the turnout at about 10,000 and reported one arrest on a minor charge.

It took the parade, with marchers eight to ten abreast, nearly an hour to pass.

"A year from now, which one of you will be a Gold Star family member," asked Steven DeFord at a pre-march rally. His son, Oregon National Guard Sgt. David Johnson, 37, was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb in September 2004.

"If 64 percent of the United States thinks this invasion is wrong, where are they?" he said. "What if I had done more? I live with that thought every day."

"It is time now for you to take back your country," he said.

The Rev. LeRoy Haynes Jr., a veteran of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee that arose in the 1960s and the Black Panther movement, said the Sept. 11 attacks were extreme terrorism but the war in Iraq is "unjust and immoral."

"We will not give up our democracy to Bush and Cheney," he said.

Iraqi journalist and activist Eman Ahmed Khamas told a cheering crowd that the war "is the worst human rights violation a country can do" and said those responsible should have to answer for it.

"A powerful country does not have the right to eliminate other nations," she said.

While a sea of peace signs and anti-war slogans bobbed above the marchers, President Bush was the target of hundreds of more: "Fire the Liar." "Impeach the Evildoer." The terrorist lives in the White House."

Many motorists honked and flashed peace signs in support. There was little visible opposition, but two men along the edge of the march held a banner reading "Bombs for God."

The protest drew people of all ages. Some arrived in wheelchairs and many brought children in strollers and dogs on leashes.

"Bones, not Bombs," read a sign attached to one pet.

Though the Iraq war was the focus, some protesters brought other issues, such as education, immigration and a general unhappiness with the Bush administration.

Ramon Ramirez, who heads a Woodburn-based farm workers' union, said the war was anti-immigrant and he wants to see democracy restored to this country.

"It's not about the war, it's about changes in our country," he said.