GOP backers, protesters stream into New York City

Protesters against U.S. President George W. Bush

Demonstrators choked the streets Sunday in front of Madison Square Garden and delegates and supporters streamed into New York City as final preparations were made for the Republican National Convention, which opens Monday morning.

Thousands of police, some dressed in riot gear and others bearing automatic weapons, watched as tens of thousands of protesters passed the convention site. Extensive as it was, the force represented only a portion of an unprecedented security deployment designed to protect the city, New Yorkers and Republicans during the convention week.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said last week the efforts would include air surveillance over the city, monitoring activity in the harbor and stationing security personnel at every hotel housing any of the 2,508 delegates or 2,344 alternates.

At mid-afternoon, a small fire erupted along the protest route a half block from Madison Square Garden. Police quickly doused the flames, then handcuffed two people and led them away.

US President Bush was in West Virginia, a state he won four years ago and is laboring to carry again. Locked in a tight race with Democratic Sen. John Kerry, the Republican is scheduled to arrive in New York on Wednesday and deliver his formal acceptance speech the following night.

In an interview with Time magazine, the president suggested he had underestimated the struggle of the postwar period in Iraq. "Had we to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success, being so successful so fast that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in escaped and lived to fight another day," Bush said.

Vice presidential candidate John Edwards responded for Kerry and the Democrats. "President Bush now says his Iraq policy is a catastrophic success. He's half right. It was catastrophic to rush to war without a plan to win the peace," he said.

Polls show the war in Iraq has become increasingly unpopular in recent months, and the throng of protesters filling 20 city blocks on a steamy Manhattan afternoon underscored that. "No More Bush," and "No More Years," were two of the more popular chants. "Bush Lies, Who Dies?," read some of the signs.

GOP Chairman Ed Gillespie said a "hopeful and optimistic" party would carry the week in Manhattan and Bush to four more years.

"This president ... is working for a safer world and a more hopeful America," Gillespie said in an interview with USA TODAY and Gannett News Service. "We are not only going to celebrate President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, we are going to celebrate a country that has displayed courage ¡ª people who have displayed compassion."

The convention will take place less than three miles from ground zero, where the World Trade Center ¡ª the once-iconic twins of the New York skyline ¡ª were toppled by terrorists three years ago next month.

There will be no official events at ground zero, but it will be frequently touched from the podiums this week. On Monday night, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will mention victims and their families in a prime-time speech. Gillespie said he counted more than 100 references to 9/11 at the Democratic National Convention in Boston earlier this month and suggested the GOP would honor the day and the people it affected similarly.

"I think the president has a much clearer view about what needs to be done to protect us than do the protesters," Giuliani said Sunday in a USA TODAY/Gannett News Service interview.

Republican officials also say they intend to use the four-day convention to build support for Bush's handling of the war on terror and the war in Iraq as well as to undermine Kerry's claim as a suitable replacement.

Source: Agencies