Hospital won't stop war protest mother

Anti-war demonstrator Cindy Sheehan said today that despite her overnight stay in hospital, the war protest activities will continue on land she bought near President George Bush’s Crawford ranch.

Sheehan was listed in stable condition at a Texas hospital today after a minor gynaecological procedure and treatment for dehydration.

Sheehan said she could be released later today but would still need to rest. She said she probably would not attend an afternoon barbecue at Camp Casey, the protesters’ campsite named for her soldier son who was killed in Iraq in 2004.

“Everything will still go on,” Sheehan, 49, said this morning. “I hope I can get there soon.”

The protest is to continue until September 3, even though Bush’s 10-day ranch holiday is to end tomorrow.

After spending a few days in Seattle at the Veterans for Peace convention, Sheehan returned to Texas on Friday. She planned to get back to the war protest she resumed on August 6, the one-year anniversary of the start of her 26-day peace vigil that drew thousands of anti-war demonstrators and spurred counter protests of Bush supporters.

But instead, friends took her from the airport to the hospital. Sheehan, who had been on a liquid diet as part of the nationwide “Troops Home Fast” hunger strike, had been treated and released from a Seattle hospital on Thursday night. There she ate for the first time in about 37 days, said her spokeswoman Tiffany Burns.

Sheehan was dehydrated again on Friday, but she said it was probably from excessive bleeding and not from the fasting. Doctors in Waco performed a procedure to stop uterine bleeding, gave her a blood transfusion and were to perform a biopsy on tissue samples, she said.

So far this summer’s protest has had a slow start, with about 50 demonstrators last Sunday and about a dozen since then. But Sheehan has said she expects more people to come next week after the Veterans for Peace convention ends.

Sheehan paid for the site about seven miles from Bush’s ranch last month so the group would have a place to protest when Bush was at his ranch. Sheehan first camped in ditches off the road leading to the ranch, but county leaders later banned roadside parking and camping. A sympathetic landowner let the group hold protests on his lot near the ranch until recently.