US News
Remove Bush from office, says US peace activist
By DPA
Jun 19, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Vienna - One of American\'s best-known peace activists Cindy Sheehan called on Monday for the removal of US President George W Bush from office, saying he should be called to account for the war in Iraq.

Sheehan was speaking at a press conference in Vienna, where her presence is expected to be a focal point of protest against Bush\'s visit Tuesday evening and Wednesday for an EU-US summit.

A withdrawal of US forces from Iraq would put an end to the violence there, said Sheehan, who lost a son in the Iraq war. Last August she gained national fame by camping for weeks near Bush\'s ranch at Crawford, Texas, in protest against the war.

Mother-of-four Sheehan, who has become a symbol of the protest movement, said the presence of US troops in Iraq fanned resistance in the country and prevented reconstruction. Iraq instead needed peacekeeping troops without tanks or permanent bases.

She refuted the frequently-used argument that a US withdrawal would bring chaos and civil war. There was already chaos and civil war now, she pointed out.

A withdrawal would instead give the Iraqis hope, and end the violence. Even the US government had acknowledged that only a small proportion of the Iraqi violence was caused by terrorism.

\'Resistance against an occupation is not terrorism,\' said Sheehan.

More than two-thirds of Americans wanted the troops to be brought home, and a timetable given for the withdrawal, claimed Sheehan, who described the anti-Bush demonstrations planned in Vienna as \'pro- American and not anti-American.\'

Far more, it was the US president who was anti-American. The great majority of Americans neither supported the killing of innocent people, nor did they support torture, she added.