Grannies read NY, NJ, CT war dead names

[cal04]

A group of anti-war grandmothers gathered Monday to call attention to the growing loss of lives inIraq by reading the names of the dead — a day after the American death toll in Iraq reached 3,000.

About 60 people from the group Grandmothers Against the War and their supporters read the names of the war dead from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center as curious tourists took their photos.

The vigil was one of more than 290 events planned in 46 U.S. cities, according to the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-led social justice group.

"We need a new course in Iraq," the group said in a statement. "A new Congress offers a new opportunity to bring the troops home, engage in diplomacy within Iraq and with Iraq's neighbors, and fund an Iraqi-led reconstruction effort."

In New York, a group of counter-protesters said the grandmothers were insulting U.S. troops, who need support during the Iraq war.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070102/ap_on_re_us/3_1