Iraqi Shi'ite protesters march on US HQ

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/GEO854225.htm

BAGHDAD, Oct 8 (Reuters) - More than 6,000 Shi'ite Muslims marched to the headquarters of the U.S.-led administration in Iraq on Wednesday in a second day of protests demanding the release of a cleric arrested by American troops.

As U.S. tanks approached, protesters lay down in the road outside a palace complex in central Baghdad that formerly housed Saddam Hussein's top officials and has now been taken over by Iraq's occupiers. They shouted slogans and refused to move.

The protesters had marched from a mosque in southern Baghdad where they massed on Tuesday following the detention of Sheikh Muayad Khazraji, a Shi'ite cleric.

Officials in the U.S.-led administration held talks with protest representatives on defusing the situation but there was no breakthrough. Clerics running the demonstrations dismissed assertions by U.S. officials that they could not release the Shi'ite leader because he was in the hands of Iraqi authorities.

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1. Well no wonder, he was in the hands of the 'Iraqi authorities'

And we have no influence over them :eyes:

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3. How silly of us to think

we have control over the Iraqi police, 'eh?

[Maine-i-acs]

2. Yeah right.

Iraqi authorities who have no control over the US demands that Turkish trops enter their land, potentially sparking a civil war.

You think the USGOV could push the Iraqis into releasing the imam if they really wanted to? They don't want to - this time. They want the Imam locked up.

Jerks.

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4. Why is it that we can't give the Iraqis

their autonomy, and stop this occupation that is nothing more than a racket for the wealty.