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John Daley reporting Prominent anti-Iraq war protester Cindy Sheehan is not coming to Utah. Sheehan hasn't recovered well enough from a surgery last week to travel.
We received word from the Mayor's Office this morning, and confirmed it in a phone conversation with her spokesperson.
| **Wednesday Demonstrations** "Anti-War" at Washington Square 10:30 a.m. "Pro-Troops" at Liberty Park 12:00 p.m. "Pro-Bush" at Washington Square 5:00 p.m. "Anti-War" at Pioneer Park at 5:00 p.m. Immigration Rally at Liberty Park 6:00 p.m. "Anti-Israel" at Washington Square 9:00 a.m. |
Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, had a hysterectomy last week. She is still recovering at her home in Crawford Texas, where she recently bought land near President Bush's ranch. Patrick Tronson, Spokesman, Salt Lake City Mayor's Office: "Found out last night from Cindy Sheehan's spokesperson that she won't be available for the protest. He doctors say she shouldn't travel due to complications from her surgery."
"Her doctor has given her strict orders not to travel because she's not healing as quickly as we anticipated," said Tiffany Burns, a representative for Cindy Sheehan. "We waited as long as we possibly could to make the decision and she's not well enough to hop on a plane to get there."
Both the Mayor's Office and Sheehan's spokesperson say though Sheehan can't appear in person, she will make comments to be broadcast to the crowd at a rally tomorrow, either by phone or on a recording.
The Mayor's spokesman says he doesn't expect the absence of Sheehan to dampen turnout for tomorrow's rally against Bush Administration policies.
Thousands of people are expected to show up at the City County Building for that event, and thousands of others are expected to attend pro-Bush rallies tomorrow.
According to Salt Lake City officials, the size of the crowds at the various events tomorrow will vary widely. Crowd size for the pro-troops and pro-Bush events are expected to be about 500 each, the rally critical of Administration policies is projected to be in the range of 5000.
Bush supporters are hosting sign-making parties around the state this afternoon.
A hundred police officers have been assigned to deal with crowds but since there weren't any problems last year they don't expect many this year.
