City Protestors Keep Up Steady Noise
As Bush Official Outlines Iraq Policy
-- Police Arrest Four

SAN FRANCISCO -- Protesters shouted antiwar chants outside a tightly-guarded downtown hotel here this evening while Deputy U.S. Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz gave a speech outlining the Bush Administration's Middle East policies, including its increasingly bitter relations with Iraq.

While police were arresting four demonstrators inside the Intercontinental Hotel for disrupting the official's address, more than 100 antiwar activists outside kept up a steady noise of protest.

The demonstators featured one man in a costume intended to resemble the Bush official, replete with a dark gray suit, a bright red and blue tie embroidered with the Republican elephant, and a werewolf mask and claw. The figure howled at passersby and pawed hungrily at a sign reading, "War for Oil."

"Paul Wolfowitz is one of the main architects of our new war on Iraq," Jeff Grubler said through the rubber mask. "He's been pushing for this war long before September 11 and tried to use the anthrax scare and weapons of mass destruction to push it."

The protestors milled around on the cold, misty afternoon while Wolfowitz delivered his speech, entitled "Building the Bridge to a More Peaceful Future." Amid chants of "No War for Oil," some protestors satirized Wolfowitz's speech with handmade signs that replaced "Building the Bridge," with "Bombing the Bridge."

Wolfowitz is known as one of the staunchest supporters of decisive military action against Iraq. From 1989 to 1993 he was Under Secretary of Defense Policy and worked closely with then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. A clean cut and serious looking man, Wolfowitz had just returned from Turkey to line up support in case of war in Iraq. His visit to San Francisco is part of a wider Administration effort to galvanize public backing around the nation for action against Iraq.

"Architect" is a word used to describe Wolfowitz on both sides. A press release described him as "a principal architect of U.S. policy toward Iraq," and protesters' rhetoric often falls into the same plane, though usually trading "policy" for "war."

Tim Kingston of Global Exchange, a San Francisco activist group, pointed to his highlighted copy of the National Security Strategy of the United States, a document Wolfowitz co-authored.

"He's dangerous; he advocates a preemptive doctrine," Kingston said, citing page 18 under the heading "Proactive counterproliferation efforts." The document reasons that a preemptive strike is not a foreign or new idea when a country feels an imminent threat, but Kingston finds the wording dubious at best.

"'Imminent' has come to mean you're planning to do something or if the government thinks you have the potential to do something," he said. "It's a drastic restructuring of the words."

Nancy Mitchell, an organizer of the protest with the group Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, said the group planted four members inside the hotel in an attempt to subvert Wolfowitz's program.

Mitchell, her pigtailed hair a blazing artificial red, said ANSWER was trying to send a message to the deputy secretary. "We want him to know that wherever he goes, he's going to have anti-war activists dogging him," she said.

Cynthia Colon, a spokeswoman for Wolfowitz, said security was alert for specifically that purpose. "We have to maintain a rigid standard [of entry] because there are protesters trying to get inside to disrupt the speech," she said.

According to Colon, the event was unhindered by both the protesters outside chanting in the rain and those inside. But Global Exchange's Kingston said maintaining an anti-war presence was important.

"Five years ago if you had a deputy defense secretary here you might have gotten people to think about it," he said. "I think it says something that you have over 100 people out here on Friday afternoon in the middle of the work day."