WASHINGTON — Anti-war groups are using a $1 million ad campaign and a demonstration that they say will attract 100,000 people to try to re-energize their movement and pressure the Bush administration to bring troops home from Iraq.

Organizers of tomorrow's protest, which will take marchers past the White House, say it will be the largest since the war began more than two years ago.

Cindy Sheehan, who drew thousands of protesters to her 26-day vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch last month, is among those planning to participate.

"We want to show Congress, the president and the administration that this peace movement is thriving," said Sheehan, whose son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, 24, was killed last year in Iraq. "We mean business and we're not going to go away until our troops come home."

Yesterday, Bush said withdrawing troops now would make the world more dangerous. "The only way the terrorists can win is if we lose our nerve and abandon the mission," he said. "For the safety and security of the American people, that's not going to happen on my watch."

Bush did not plan to be in Washington for the protest, but he will have support on the streets. The groups FreeRepublic.com and Protest Warrior plan their own demonstration, with hundreds expected to join in.

"We made a vow after Sept. 11 that we would not allow the anti-American left to do to us this time what they did during Vietnam, which was wear down the morale of the American people," FreeRepublic spokesman Kristinn Taylor said.

Nationally known Democratic war critics, including Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and John Kerry of Massachusetts won't attend the anti-war protest. Democrats are divided over the war, and many leaders are wary of standing with anti-war activists.

The rally comes at a time a growing number of Americans want a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, a proposition Bush and many leading Democrats reject.

A poll this week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 51 percent of Americans want to keep troops in Iraq until it's stabilized, but the ranks of those who want to set a timetable to withdraw have grown to 57 percent from 49 percent in July. (Evidently some people chose both answers.)

At the same time, a growing number of grass-roots Democrats are dissatisfied with their party's leadership in Congress.

The anti-war groups began an advertising campaign yesterday, sponsored by Win Without War, with an advertisement in The Washington Post and other newspapers. The left side of the double-page ad pictures Bush and administration officials with quotes about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq under the headline "They lied." The right side lists the names of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq with the headline "They died."

A television spot, sponsored by Gold Star Families for Peace, is running on Fox News Channel and local cable TV. The TV ad features Sheehan and other relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

Commentary:
It's time for the pro war lobby (the media) to return to reality–try to welcome them back. During the month of August, Ms. Sheehan destroyed Bush's pro war agenda and took his poll numbers into the tank. But the pro war media says the rally is meant to "re-energize their movement." Hell, they brought a sitting president to his knees in four weeks. How much more re-energizing do the anti war people need? Bias is ok, but idiocy is for the Bush White House. This is idiocy (most likely written by Karl Rove).

And the democrats...cowards aren't leaders. Stand for something or get out of the way.