© The Associated Press / Jacquelyn Martin
Pat Loveless, right, of Takoma Park, Md., protests the 8th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, with other anti-war protesters during a rally near the White House in Washington, on Saturday, March 19,2011.
More than 100 anti-war protesters, including the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, were arrested outside the White House on Saturday in demonstrations marking the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
The protesters, some shouting anti-war slogans and singing "We Shall Not Be Moved," were arrested after ignoring orders to move away from the gates of the White House. The demonstrators cheered loudly as Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon's secret history of the Vietnam War that was later published in major newspapers, was arrested and led away by police.
Similar protests marking the start of the Iraq war were also planned Saturday in Chicago, San Francisco and other cities.
The demonstration in Washington on Saturday merged varied causes, including protesters demanding a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as those supporting Bradley Manning, the jailed Army private suspected of giving classified documents to the website Wikileaks.
One chant that was repeated was: "Stop the War! Expose the Lies! Free Bradley Manning!"
There was little talk of the U.S. missile strikes against Moammar Gadhafi's forces in Libya on Saturday, part of an international effort to protect rebel forces.
Manning is being held in solitary confinement for all but an hour every day at a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia. He is given a suicide-proof smock to wear to bed and is stripped naked each night. On Sunday, a protest will be held in Quantico, outside the brig where Manning is being held.
Ellsberg has publicly defended Manning, calling him a "brother," and Wikileaks.
