Thousands protest in Iraq against U.S. troops pact

By Aws Qusay and Khalid al-Ansary

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr marched on Friday against a pact letting U.S. forces stay in Iraq until 2011, toppling an effigy of President George W. Bush where U.S. troops once tore down a statue of Saddam Hussein.

Thousands of demonstrators chanted and waved Iraqi flags in Baghdad's Firdos square, where U.S. forces pulled down a statue of the ousted Iraqi dictator when they took the city in 2003.

The pact, approved by both governments and now being debated rancorously in the Iraqi parliament, requires U.S. troops to leave the streets of Iraqi towns by the middle of next year and to leave the country by December 31, 2011.

U.S. forces will need Iraqi warrants to arrest people, and U.S. contractors will be subjected to Iraqi law.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki obtained important concessions from the United States in months of grueling negotiations, and has ridiculed the Sadrists for demanding a firm date for a U.S. withdrawal, only to oppose it when he delivered it in the pact.

While the Sadrists have not made clear what their practical alternative to the pact is, they say U.S. troops should leave Iraq immediately, not in three years. They also say they doubt the Americans will stick to the agreed timetable.

Bush had long opposed setting a deadline. His elected successor, Democrat Barack Obama, says he will withdraw combat forces within 16 months of taking office in January.

In Firdos Square, the Sadrist protesters erected an effigy of the outgoing U.S. president, carrying a briefcase with the words "The pact of subservience and shame." They hurled bottles at the effigy, toppled it, tore it to pieces and set it on fire.

"I am with you in evicting the occupier any way you see fit," a white-turbaned cleric read out to the demonstrators in a message from Sadr, to shouts of "God is Great" from the crowd.

"NEVER, NEVER"

Sadr's supporters have staged several violent uprisings since 2003.

With Iraqi army snipers peering down from the rooftops, the protesters knelt in prayer, then set off on a march chanting "Never, never to the pact."

"I obey Sadr's orders to reject this degrading and humiliating pact," said Abu Zainab, 36, a casual laborer from Baghdad's Sadr City slum. "The pact was born dead because the occupation forces will not withdraw at the agreed times."

The office of Baghdad security spokesman Major-General Qasim Moussawi said the protest took place without violent incident.

Members of the Sadrist parliamentary bloc joined the march.