At Least 200,000 Protest in Australia

SYDNEY, Australia — Hundreds of thousands of chanting, placard-waving people marched through downtown Sydney on Sunday to protest Australia’s possible involvement in a U.S.-led war on Iraq.

Organizers estimated the crowd at 500,000; police said at least 200,000 people showed up but agreed that it was Australia’s biggest protest since the Vietnam War.

Australia is one of Washington’s staunchest allies and has deployed 2,000 troops to the Mideast. Prime Minister John Howard reaffirmed his support for U.S. policy Sunday, saying he was not convinced that the large crowds were evidence that public opinion was against war.

“My charge as prime minister is to take any decision that is in the best interest of the country,” he told Australia’s Channel Nine on his return from a tour of the U.S., Britain and Indonesia. “I am worried about countries like Iraq possessing chemical and biological weapons, not only that they might use them themselves, they might hand them to terrorists.”

Meanwhile, in the Persian Gulf sultanate of Oman, about 200 women marched in the nation’s first all-female demonstration to urge the U.S. and Britain not to wage war on Iraq. Women in head scarves and robes took to the streets of the capital, Muscat, carrying banners in English reading: “Excess of peace, not excess of evil.”

Iraq’s newspapers gave prominent coverage to global antiwar protests. “The world rises against American aggression and the arrogance of naked force,” read one headline.