Bush Catches It From All Sides as He Arrives

President Bush is enjoying overwhelming popularity in post-Gulf War America, but on the sidewalks of Fashion Island on Thursday, he couldn’t win.

On one end of the police line that marked his arrival path outside the Four Seasons Hotel was a raucous throng of several hundred Kurdish-Americans in traditional dress, angry with Bush for refusing to aid militarily in Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s overthrow.

“President Bush,” the several hundred protesters wailed in unison as Bush’s motorcade passed by them around 1:15 p.m., “why, why Kurdish children have to die?”

But farther down the line, smaller but vocal, was a group of several dozen peace activists who accused Bush of “genocide” and condemned him for starting the Gulf War in the first place.

It was a day for all causes in Newport Beach as the President arrived at the tightly guarded hotel to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu.

Interspersed among the crowd of more than 300 waiting for a look at the dignitaries were tourists, lunchtime curiosity-seekers, an Armenian civil rights protester, anti-Japanese demonstrators and even a few Bush supporters who nearly sparked a fight when they brought out a mariachi band from Santa Ana to hail the chief’s arrival.

“Thousands of Kurdish people are dying and you are playing music!” Salah Zandi, 38, of Chula Vista screamed at the organizer of the band as they stood toe to toe.

The organizer, a World War II veteran from Costa Mesa named William Holiday, eventually had the mariachi band stop the music. But undaunted, he continued his spirited debate with the Kurdish protesters throughout the course of the two-hour protest.

“It’s a free country, we can all share the streets,” he said later. “While (Bush) is here, he needs to know we support him. We’re here to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. President.’ ”

Holiday had his own supporters in the crowd, but these Bush backers were outnumbered and, for the most part, quiet.

“This is disrespect,” one woman grumbled to a companion as she pointed to the Kurdish protesters. “If they want to get Saddam, they should get him themselves. We’re not responsible for that.”

The Kurdish activists, making up perhaps two-thirds or more of the protesters on hand, burned pictures of Saddam Hussein, waved signs calling him the “Hitler of the 90s,” hurled themselves against the police lines and engaged in emotional renditions of the Kurdish national anthem, with their pitch rising as the time for the President’s arrival neared.

Ary Jeff of San Diego, an organizer of a local Kurdish group, said there are about 1,000 Kurds in Southern California, many of whom emigrated to this country within the past decade because of oppression in their homelands.

Jeff said many now feel betrayed by Bush because of his refusal to back the Kurds’ bloody attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Voicing this sentiment, Siri Amdi of Anaheim said of Bush: “He provoked (the Iraqi people) to stand up to their regime, and when they did, he pulled out the rug and went fishing.”

In a letter that Talal Jalaby of Mission Viejo said was to be given to President Bush on behalf of a group of fellow Iraqi-Americans, the group said: “We are shocked and outraged by the U.S. government position of offering no support to the popular uprising in Iraq. . . . This position is a license from the victors for the continued butchering of the Iraqi people.”

Their appeals drew sympathy but not support from a group of several dozen peace activists gathered next to them on the police line outside the hotel.

“The war solved nothing for the Kurds--it only complicated their plight,” said Marion Pack, an organizer of the Santa Ana-based Orange County Coalition for Peace and Justice.

Intent on disproving reports of the peace movement’s death, the activists banged makeshift drums and waved banners of their own, calling on Americans to “give peace a chance” and oust Bush.

“I want to know when Bush is going to start turning his attention to domestic problems . . . like the homeless,” Pack said. “It’s really pretty sad that it took a war to make Americans feel good about themselves.”

But politics were secondary in the minds of many of the local office workers who ventured outside on their lunch hours in business attire, some with video cameras, for a glimpse of the President.

For them, the issues of war and Kurds and diplomacy didn’t matter so much as the spectacle.

“Get a shot of me in front of the protesters,” said one woman to a friend with a camera.

“Has he been by yet?” one latecomer asked nervously.

Once the procession of California Highway Patrol motorcycles and limousines finally did arrive, the glimpse of Bush through the thick car glass was brief and dark. But some didn’t seem to mind.

“I got pictures of black cars,” one excited little girl said as she left the scene atop her father’s shoulders.

REFUGEE AID: Iran asks help to cope with fleeing Kurds. A12