Cindy Sheehan Buys 5 Acres Near Bush Ranch to Renew War Protest

War protesters who return in August to President Bush’s adopted hometown will have a new and bigger gathering place: a 5-acre lot bought with insurance money Cindy Sheehan received after her son was killed in Iraq.

Gerry Fonseca, a fellow war protester who acted as Sheehan’s agent, said he recently bought the lot about a mile from downtown Crawford -- and about seven miles from Bush’s ranch -- for $52,500. About half the land is pasture, the other half woods, he said.

“If Cindy Sheehan came to town, I don’t think anybody would have sold her any property,” Fonseca, of Eagle Rock, Mo., said Thursday.

Sheehan, of Berkeley, reinvigorated the antiwar movement last summer with vigils in ditches off the road to Bush’s ranch. As the group grew, it also set up protests on a privately owned 1-acre lot closer to the ranch.

“We decided to buy property in Crawford to use until George’s resignation or impeachment, which we all hope is soon for the sake of the world,” Sheehan said in a newsletter that was to be sent to supporters Thursday. “I can’t think of a better way to use Casey’s insurance money than for peace, and I am sure that Casey approves.”

Casey Sheehan, her oldest son, was killed on military duty in Iraq in 2004.

The antiwar Crawford gathering had been scheduled for Aug. 16 through early September, but it is now to begin several days earlier, because Bush is expected to be at his ranch the first two weeks of August.