Bush Refuses To Meet With Sheehan

A Call To Action

Aides say 'Bush really cares'

by OfficialWire NewsDesk

CRAWFORD, TX -- (OfficialWire) -- 08/07/05 -- Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Sadr City, Iraq, on April 4, 2004, met with two Bush administration aides Saturday after president George W. Bush refused to come out to meet her.

Sheehan, 48 (shown here), traveled to the president's Crawford ranch after Bush said that fallen U.S. troops had died for a 'noble cause' and that the mission must be completed.

"I want to ask the president, 'Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?" Sheehan told reporters. "Last week, you said my son died for a noble cause' and I want to ask him what that noble cause is?"

A group of approximately 50 supporters made their way toward Bush's ranch, chanting "W. killed her son!" as they walked. The protestors had marched approximately one half-mile down the country road leading to Bush's compound before police stopped them at a bend in the road, still nearly five miles from the ranch's gate.

Capt. Kenneth Vanek of the McLennan County Sheriff's Office said the group was stopped because some marchers ignored instructions to walk in the ditch beside the road, not on the road.

Eventually, national security adviser Steve Hadley and deputy White House chief of staff Joe Hagin were sent out by the president, who refused to meet Sheehan.

After the meeting, Sheehan said: "They (the advisers) said we are in Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that the world's a better place with Saddam gone and that we're making the world a safer place with what we're doing over there."

"And I said if he does care, why doesn't he come out and talk to me." Sheehan said she planned to continue her protest until she gets to talk to Bush.

"They were very respectful. They were nice men. I told them Iraq was not a threat to the United States and that now people are dead for nothing. I told them I wouldn't leave until I talked to George Bush," Sheehan added.