“Thousands of protesters flooded Baghdad’s Firdos Square Friday to protest the Iraqi government’s plan to sign an accord concerning U.S. troops in the country. The protesters, supporters of rebel Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, hanged an effigy of President George Bush from the pedestal that once supported the statue of Saddam Hussein toppled when U.S. troops took over Baghdad in 2003, The New York Times reported. … An aide to Sadr said the cleric’s supporters, estimated to be at least 10,000, were ‘coming out to prove the security pact is worthless,’ the BBC reported.” (11/21/08)