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U.S. Police Arrests 9 Anti-Bush Protesters
U.S. police arrested nine people here Saturday as thousands of noisy demonstrators lined rain-soaked streets to boo George W. Bush's inauguration.
The protesters chanted "Hail to the Thief" as they championed causes from abortion to electoral rights.
Bush was sworn in as the 43rd president of the United States at the Capitol Hill at 12:00 (1700 GMT) Saturday.
Amid the tightest-ever security measures for a presidential swearing-in, police said they had arrested nine protesters and charged them with disorderly conduct.
Organizers said upward of 20,000 people had come from all corners of the country and abroad to protest the most hard fought election in decades. But the groups were dispersed throughout Washington's downtown area and all along the parade route. Police did not provide an estimate.
Protesters loudly booed the inaugural parade along Pennsylvania Avenue which runs from the Capitol to the White House, shouting, " shame, shame, shame," as some made obscene gestures at parade marchers.
They clashed briefly with police clad in riot gear at a few flash points while Bush remained in his limousine for most of the traditional parade route up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House.
A couple of protesters threw bottles before the presidential limousine arrived, and one hurled an egg that landed near the motorcade, the Secret Service said.
But the protesters managed little else to interrupt the festivities in the face of a massive show of 7,000 police officers.
The new president finally exited for a brief walk outside only after he reached a secure zone near the White House filled with inauguration ticket-holders and no protesters.
The protests were the largest since those during Nixon's 1973 inauguration at the height of the Vietnam war.
The former Texas governor narrowly defeated Democrat Al Gore, Bill Clinton's vice president, in the dramatic November 7 election last year that was not finally decided until mid-December.
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