Marchers Urge End to Conflict : Dissent: Protesters say they are pro-America but anti-war. Rally at City Hall is the largest locally since hostilities began.

Thousands of anti-war protesters from throughout Southern California converged on downtown Los Angeles on Saturday and marched to the south lawn of City Hall in what organizers called the region’s largest demonstration since the war with Iraq began 10 days ago.

Chanting slogans in English and Spanish and hoisting hundreds of picket signs, the procession stretched six blocks on its march through the Latino commercial district along Broadway.

At City Hall, the assembly listened to speakers that ranged from parents with sons and daughters in the war zone to critics of American media coverage to environmentalists alarmed by the giant oil spill fouling the Persian Gulf.

The march and rally proved peaceful, save for noisy confrontations between marchers and others urging support for Operation Desert Storm.

Some marchers waved Old Glories of their own and took umbrage when counterdemonstrators challenged their patriotism. Escorted by police mounted patrol, the war protesters marched behind a banner that proclaimed: “Stop the War! Support Our Troops and Bring Them Home Now.” One protester’s sign put it this way: “Pro-America, Anti-War.”

The Los Angeles march, organized by the L.A. Coalition Against U.S. Intervention in the Middle East, was one of several staged throughout the country. Federal Park Police in Washington estimated that a rally there attracted 75,000, the largest single protest since the war began. In San Francisco, a rally drew an estimated 30,000.

Meanwhile, a rally supporting the war drew a crowd that police estimated at 2,000 to the Federal Building in Westwood.

Crowd estimates varied widely in downtown Los Angeles. Police estimates ranged as low as 2,500 while protest organizers boasted of numbers as high as 15,000 or 20,000. “I figure a good rule is to double the police estimate and cut the organizers’ in half, then divide the difference,” one protester said.

“There’s tremendous energy here,” said Patrick Flynn, a 58-year-old Yorba Linda resident hoisting a banner identifying himself as part of an Orange County anti-war coalition. “It’s like something medieval, like a town square.”

Wearing a “Veterans for Peace” T-shirt, Flynn said this anti-war movement represented his first effort at political activism. “I just know this is terribly wrong for America,” he said.

Despite polls showing widespread support for President Bush’s war policy, Flynn said, a growing protest movement along with the continuing “Nintendo war” on television “will have a great effect on an American public that is confused and trying to form an opinion.”

Government censorship and “sanitized” media accounts are among the frustrations energizing the anti-war sentiment, Flynn said. “We know people are getting killed and being bombed, but George Bush and Saddam Hussein find it convenient to ignore it.”

If nothing else, the march succeeded in disrupting downtown traffic. A parade permit enabled marchers to occupy the northbound lanes of Broadway, and at its peak, they stretched from 4th Street to Olympic Boulevard, with protesters usually about seven abreast.

Crosstown motorists shut off their engines and waited 40 minutes to be on their way, viewing banners identifying groups from Orange County, Santa Barbara and High Desert communities such as Victorville, as well as organizations ranging from Young Koreans United and Greenpeace to Young Communists and Lesbians Against War.

They also pondered such messages as: “Help Arm a Madman, then Sacrifice America’s Young People. Why?” and “War is Not an Energy Policy.”

Sherry Meddick, a spokeswoman for the Greenpeace environmental group, said warnings were made long ago that war could prove an ecological disaster. “We said from the start this is a war for oil,” said Meddick. “Now oil is being used as a weapon.”

Some people saw the rally as an exercise in democracy.

Waleed Masry placed his arm around his 11-year-old son’s shoulder and led the boy to where about 20 people were waving American flags and chanting: “Hey, hey, hey Hussein! How many kids you killed today?” behind a protective line of Los Angeles Police Department officers.

“It’s important that he see both sides of this event,” said Masry, a 41-year-old real estate broker. “And I want him to see the policemen protecting the freedom represented by those flags.

“But I also told my son that while I’m prepared to die for their right to stand there and say we should go to war,” Masry added, “I’m not prepared to spill a drop for oil.”

As he spoke, pro-war demonstrator Jeff Hartwick was involved in a heated face-to-face argument with four men who took issue with his placard. It read: “No To Leftist Hippies.”

“This war is just an example of American imperialism!” one of the men screamed.

“Yeah? Well, what about Iraq’s imperialism in Kuwait?” Hartwick argued.

“We sold Hussein the computers that allowed him to take Kuwait!” barked another man with a crystal dangling from a chain around his neck.

“I repeat: What about Third World imperialism?” Hartwick said.

Exhausted and nearly hoarse, Hartwick pointed at the anti-war crowd and said: “Stuff like this demoralizes our troops overseas. I’m sick of it.”

In San Francisco, protesters rallied on Justin Herman Plaza near the downtown area in the morning and marched to the Civic Center shortly after noon, waving banners decrying U.S. involvement in the war and calling for a peaceful settlement. Police said the demonstration progressed without incident.

No arrests were reported at either the Los Angeles or San Francisco demonstrations.

Times staff writer Louis Sahagun in Los Angeles and stringer Christopher Elliot in San Francisco contributed to this story.