'Peace mom' chides Feinstein on Iraq stance

"SAN FRANCISCO — The Vacaville woman who made national headlines with a peace vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch brought her rhetorical guns to bear Friday on one of California's U.S. senators.
Cindy Sheehan — whose son, Casey, 24, was a soldier killed in Baghdad in April 2004 — met briefly with an aide to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., before telling reporters the lawmaker's reasons for supporting Iraq's ongoing occupation are "very bogus."

The Iraqi constitution, supported by the United States, is based on Islamic law and severely curtails women's rights, she said, while Iraqi leaders are "puppet leaders who George Bush put into place."

U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers are seen as collaborators and can do little more than fight for survival, and Iraq's crucial infrastructure continues to be eroded by an insurgency fueled by the U.S. military presence, she said.

Feinstein previously has acknowledged she and other lawmakers were lied to about the reasons for going to war, and that if she knew then what she knew now, she wouldn't have voted to support the conflict, Sheehan said. "Well, if she knows it's wrong, it's time to bring our kids home," she said. The government's inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina's devastation "has just proven that what George Bush is doing in Iraq is making us less safe. We're so vulnerable right now," Sheehan added, claiming money, resources and National Guard personnel deployed to the war and is, thus, unavailable to domestic disaster victims. "The people of New Orleans are collateral damage to the war in Iraq."

Sheehan said she spoke by phone Friday with U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., whom she described as "100 percent supportive" of efforts to bring the troops home."-from the story in the Oakland Tribune.