More than 100 anti-war protesters, including the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, were arrested outside the White House in demonstrations marking the eighth anniversary of the US-led war in Iraq.
The protesters, some shouting anti-war slogans and singing "We Shall Not Be Moved," were arrested Saturday after ignoring orders to move away from the gates of the White House. The demonstrators cheered loudly as Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon's secret history of the Vietnam War that was later published in major newspapers, was arrested and led away by police.
In New York City, about 80 protesters gathered near the US military recruiting center in Times Square, chanting "No to war" and carrying banners that read, "I am not paying for war" and "Butter not guns."
Similar protests marking the start of the Iraq war also were organised Saturday in San Francisco, Chicago and other cities.
In California, hundreds of people marched in downtown San Francisco. Hundreds more, including students from more than 40 high schools and community colleges, marched in Los Angeles in protest of the US presence in Iraq, organisers and police said.
Some used the rallies to draw attention to the new military action in Libya.
"You can't stand by and watch people being slaughtered. At the same time you don't want to foster war. It's walking a very fine line," Bishop Otis Charles told KCBS-TV at the San Francisco protest.
The demonstration in Washingtonmerged varied causes, including protesters demanding a US military withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as those supporting Bradley Manning, the jailed Army private suspected of giving classified documents to the website WikiLeaks.