And now the Reuters version

["Jose G. Perez" <jg_perez@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

     By Mark Wilkinson

     WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chanting slogans accusing
President Bush of planning genocide, tens of
thousands of protesters marched on the White House Saturday
to demonstrate against a possible attack on Iraq.

     Organizers said they expected up to 100,000 demonstrators
to converge on Washington for the protest march and to listen
to anti-war speakers ranging from actress Susan Sarandon to
civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson.

     'This is going to be an ugly, unnecessary fight. Most of
the world is saying no to it,' Jackson said. 'Preemptive
one-bullet diplomacy, we cannot resort to that.'

     Thousands of protesters carrying signs reading: 'No Proof,
No War,' 'Bush Sucks' and 'Sacrifice Oil for Justice,' gathered
at the Vietnam War memorial in Washington before setting off to
march to the White House and back to the National Mall.

     'George Bush, you can't hide. We charge you with genocide!'
chanted the demonstrators, who were accompanied by mounted U.S.
Park Police and watched by hundreds of other police officers
along the route.

     A tandem demonstration -- expected to be equal in size to
the gathering in the nation's capital -- will take place in San
Francisco Saturday.

     'There is incredible momentum against Bush, that will
culminate in a massive outpouring that we hope will be big
enough to challenge and stop war plans against Iraq,' said Tony
Murphy, one of the protest's organizers. 'This has the
potential to be as strong a movement as that against the
Vietnam war in the 1960s.'

     In the late 1960s, with the country mired in a costly war
in Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of anti-war demonstrators
gathered in major cities across the country.

     ABANDON WAR PLANS
     This time protesters called on the U.S. government to
abandon war plans against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and to
spend the tens of billions of dollars the campaign could cost
on social programs in the United States.

     They said sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War in
1991 should be lifted, blaming them for the deaths of hundreds
of thousands of civilians.

     'If violence fixed the problem, then Israel should be at
peace,' said Rick Blumhorst of Kansas, a Gulf War veteran
wearing his Army dress uniform. 'Acting unilaterally, we're
going to inflame the Muslim community.'

     Congress has approved a resolution that would give Bush the
power to declare war on Iraq, a campaign that the president
said would rid the country of suspected weapons of mass
destruction and possibly oust Saddam.

     Tamir Musa, an Iraqi who has lived in Michigan for 10
years, traveled to Washington with about 500 other exiles to
show their support for efforts to remove Saddam from power.

     'The war is good if it goes to kill Saddam Hussein. He has
a lot of bombs; he's terrorist number one,' Musa said.

     A Reuters poll of 22 defense experts from around the world
found most believed it was likely the United States would
invade Iraq in the next six months.

     In San Francisco, organizers expect thousands of people
from across the western states to attend a march and rally near
city hall. Speakers will include California Democratic Rep.
Barbara Lee, who opposed a congressional resolution on using
force against Iraq, and Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, whose story
was told in the movie 'Born on the Fourth of July.'

    Antiwar protests are also planned for Saturday in cities
worldwide, including Mexico City, Copenhagen, Seoul, Tokyo,
Berlin and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Last month more than 150,000
people rallied in London against a campaign on Iraq.

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