LOS ANGELES — Thousands of people in cities across the United States took part in demonstrations Sunday protesting US plans to invade Iraq.
In Los Angeles, police said about 3,000 people took part in protests held near the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles.
LA police officials said the demonstration there was the largest so far against Washington's Iraq policy.
In downtown San Francisco, some 5,000 people protested in the city's Union Square area, according to the local police department.
"This was a fairly significant demonstration, but it was entirely peaceful and no arrests were made," said Paul Yep, a spokesman with the San Francisco Police Department.
According to media reports, some 20,000 people thronged Manhattan's Central Park in the New York protest, but police officials were unable to confirm that figure.
A spokeswoman for the New York Police Department said there were two arrests for disorderly conduct.
In all, protests were held Sunday — or were planned for Monday — in numerous cities across the United States, including New York, Chicago, Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, Houston, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia and Denver, Colorado.
The protests were organized by a group called Not In Our Name, a national coalition of antiwar activists opposed to the US bombing of Afghanistan and US plans to launch military action against Iraq.
On Friday, several hundred celebrities and intellectuals published a "Not in our Name" manifesto in the Los Angeles Times, urging Americans to resist their government's policies.
We "call on the people of the US to resist the policies and overall political direction that have emerged since September 11, 2001, and which pose grave dangers to the people of the world," they wrote.
Among the signatories were "JFK" movie director Oliver Stone, "Gosford Park" filmmakers Robert Altman and Terry Gilliam, actress Jane Fonda, "Lethal Weapon" star Danny Glover and Susan Sarandon, star of "Thelma and Louise."
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