About 500 people from Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts travel to Washington, D.C., for the rally against the Iraq war.

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, September 25, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Crowds opposed to the war in Iraq surged past the White House yesterday, shouting "Peace now" in the largest antiwar protest in the nation's capital since the U.S. invasion.

The rally stretched through the day and into the night, a marathon of music, speechmaking and dissent on the National Mall. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, noting that organizers had hoped to draw 100,000 people, said, "I think they probably hit that."

Speakers from the stage attacked President Bush's policies head on, but he was not at the White House to hear it. He spent the day in Colorado and Texas, monitoring hurricane recovery.

In the crowd: young activists, nuns whose antiwar activism dates to Vietnam, parents mourning their children in uniform lost in Iraq, and uncountable families motivated for the first time to protest.

Connie McCroskey, 58, came from Des Moines, Iowa, with two of her daughters, both in their 20s, for the family's first demonstration. McCroskey said she never would have dared protest during the Vietnam War.

"Today, I had some courage," she said.

About 500 people from Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts converged on Washington for the march, according to Shaun Joseph, a coordinator for the Rhode Island Community Coalition for Peace.

"The mobilization from Rhode Island was unlike anything we've ever seen," he said. "It sends an absolutely undeniable message to Bush and the warmongers."

Joseph, a computer programmer who lives in Providence, went on the bus that left late Friday night from the Stop & Shop near Branch Avenue.

Jon Corey, of the Rhode Island Progressive League, was on a bus that left from the parking lot of Wal-Mart in Newport. Reached last night by cell phone, he said that he was waiting in line at a Metro station to buy a pass to take him back to the bus, which was scheduled to depart at 6 p.m. "I don't know if that's going to happen," he said. "There's a huge crowd here. The station is packed with people trying to buy fare cards."

Most protesters from New England will return early this morning, but some are staying through tomorrow. Noah Merrill, of the American Friends Service Committee's Providence office, said he would stick around and might participate in a civil-disobedience action at the White House tomorrow. He said, "It's amazing to see the commitment and energy coming from people. The spectrum of our community that's represented here is astonishing to me."

While united against the war, protesters' political beliefs varied. Paul Rutherford, 60, of Vandalia, Mich., said he is a Republican who supported Mr. Bush in the last election and still does -- except for the war.

"President Bush needs to admit he made a mistake in the war and bring the troops home, and let's move on," Rutherford said.

A few hundred people in a counter demonstration in support of Mr. Bush's Iraq policy lined the protest route near the FBI building. The two groups shouted at each other, a police line keeping them apart.

Ramsey said the day's protest unfolded peacefully under the heavy police presence. "They're vocal but not violent," he said.

Folk singer Joan Baez marched with the protesters and later serenaded them at a concert at the foot of the Washington Monument.

The protest in the capital was part of a series of demonstrations in cities in the United States and other countries. A crowd in London, estimated by the police at 10,000, marched in support of withdrawing British troops from Iraq.

In Rome, dozens of protesters held up banners and peace flags outside the U.S. Embassy.

Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who drew thousands of demonstrators to her 26-day vigil outside the president's Texas ranch last month, was greeted by a roar of approval when she took the stage in Washington. Her 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in Iraq last year.

"Shame on you," Sheehan admonished, directing that portion of her remarks to members of Congress who backed Mr. Bush on the war. "How many more of other people's children are you willing to sacrifice?"

She led the crowd in chanting, "Not one more."

Supporters of the president's policy in Iraq assembled in smaller numbers. About 150 of them rallied at the U.S. Navy Memorial.

Gary Qualls, 48, of Temple, Texas, whose Marine reservist son, Louis, died last year in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, asked: "If you bring them home now, who's going to be responsible for all the atrocities that are fixing to happen over there? Cindy Sheehan?"

-- With reports from Journal Staff Writer Elizabeth Gudrais