About 300 people protested during President Bush's visit to Louisville yesterday, challenging his policy on Iraq.

The protesters chanted anti-war slogans, carried signs and beat drums, as thousands of others waited to be admitted to the Kentucky International Convention Center for the president's speech.

Alicia Smiley, a police department spokeswoman, said a suspicious package found in the protest area was taken aside and detonated. She said authorities couldn't determine what had been in the package but that it wasn't anything harmful.

Carol Ralph, 57, of Louisville, was one of those protesting. ''We don't want to go to war,'' Ralph said.

Police moved protesters back into a designated area outside the Kentucky International Convention Center. Six people were arrested. Police said they likely would be charged with failure to disperse.

Police arrested six protesters just before 6 p.m. Mounted officers waded into the crowd attempting to push them back into the designated protest area, and some who were slow to respond were arrested.

The names of those arrested were not immediately released, but Louisville police Maj. Don Burbrink said the six likely would face charges of failure to disperse.

Inside the convention center, Bush urged support for U.S. Rep. Anne Northup in her 3rd District re-election campaign in Kentucky against Democrat Jack Conway, and for Mike Sodrel, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Baron Hill in Southern Indiana's 9th District.

Few protesters showed support for any candidates and focused almost exclusively on Bush's Iraq policy.

''The U.S. does not attack other people,'' said Bob Buhts, 60, of Prospect. ''For the president to take such a position is disgusting.''

Sister Miriam Corcoran, of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, said the arrests struck her as un-American. But she said the bigger issue at the protest was making it known that opposition to the president's policies regarding Iraq was growing.

''There have been protests all over the country and all over the world,'' she said. ''Tens of thousands of people have spoken out on this war.''

In Washington this week, 100,000 people participated in protests against a war with Iraq.

But for some young visitors to Louisville, the presence of the protesters prompted them to mount a small counterprotest.

Some FFA members, in town for their national convention, saw the protesters, went back to their hotel rooms to find American flags and returned to the scene to silently challenge the protesters' messages.

Roger Turner Jr., 18, of Fulks Run, Va., held a flag with two of his friends. He said Bush is right about Iraq and other issues.

''My dad fought in Vietnam, and I have never seen anything like this,'' he said, pointing to the protest. ''There's nothing like a lack of support for your country.''

But next to a sign that read, ''Peace IS patriotic,'' Louisville builder Sam Avery said he worried that an attack on Iraq would make America more, not less, vulnerable to terrorists.

''If we launched an unprovoked attack against Iraq, it will be seen as an attack on the Arab world,'' he said. ''We will be giving them the right to self-defense, and we can expect terrorism on a regular basis.''

Copyright 2002 The Courier-Journal

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