NANCY LESSIN
Lessin is co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, which is protesting the war with 50 events in 26 states listed on their web page. She can put media in touch with their members around the country. Lessin said today: “As we commemorate the third year of this war that should never have happened, the U.S. government is escalating with a major air offensive. They are hurting our soldiers, Iraqis, our nation and the nation of Iraq. They are going in exactly the wrong direction.”
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PABLO PAREDES
FERNANDO SUAREZ DEL SOLAR
They are among the participants in a march for peace from Tijuana, Mexico, to the Mission district of San Francisco.

Fernando Suarez del Solar is the father of Jesus Alberto Suarez del Solar Navarro, one of the first Latinos to die in Iraq. He said today: “I was lied to about my son’s death and found the truth in Iraq with the help of a well-known recent victim of the war, [co-anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight] Bob Woodruff. My son Jesus stepped on an illegal U.S. cluster bomb.”

Paredes said today: “I am a Navy war resister who refused boarding an Iraq-bound ship on Dec. 6, 2004. I was court-martialed, sentenced, and now speak out for peace.”
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RASHAD ZIDAN
A pharmacist, Zidan now works in Baghdad and Fallujah with the Women and Knowledge Society to aid victims of war, especially orphans. She is with a delegation of six Iraqi women who are in the U.S. until the beginning of April.
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SUE UDRY
KARA HOPKINS
Udry, legislative action coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, said today: “We see the Bush administration escalating the war in Iraq with new attacks and last night the Congress give another $70 billion for war. They are continuing on a course that is disastrous to so many.”

Hopkins, an editor at the American Conservative magazine, said today: “Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the United States; true conservatives believe our actions should be defensive, not offensive.”

Both were among the participants at an event in Washington, D.C., today launching the non-partisan group Voters for Peace, which aims to form a “peace vote.”
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[The group United for Peace and Justice is helping organize protests around the U.S. the next several days and has some connections globally as well. See their website.]

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167