NEWS YOU CAN ABUSE: Antiwar protest attracts 600

TREVOR MAXWELL
Portland Press Herald
Sunday, August 27, 2006

KENNEBUNKPORT - Separated from Walker's Point by security barricades and a light fog over the cove, about 600 protesters on Saturday called for an immediate end to the Iraq war.

The rally near the Bush family compound followed a slow, 90-minute march through the town center. It coincided with President Bush's first trip here in two years.
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"Cut the funding for the war, bring our troops home now," the protesters chanted at the Secret Service checkpoint, about a half-mile from the compound. The march and another rally afterward were peaceful. Police made no arrests.

"Enough is enough," said Jack Bussell of Portland, a member of Maine Veterans for Peace, which organized the protest. "This is an illegal war. The point was weapons of mass destruction, which weren't there. The connections to terrorism weren't there."

Carrying banners and handwritten signs, the crowd began to gather on Saturday morning at the Consolidated School near downtown. "It's time to speak up against this war," said Pat Clark, 60, of Biddeford, who said this was her first involvement in a political protest. Before the march, she stood with her three grandsons.

"It's time to think about how to get out of Iraq without losing face, and without losing thousands of more lives," she said. The march started just before noon, led by a Veterans For Peace banner and a giant bass drum. It caught the attention of residents and summer visitors, who lined the streets downtown and the vast lawns of Ocean Avenue.

The onlookers reflected divisions in the country: some flashed peace signs and applauded; others turned their thumbs down and shouted support for President Bush.

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