The show of Shiite fervor hit its peak as retired US general Jay Garner, the American civil administrator for Iraq, was touring the country's north in his initial inspection of reconstruction needs.
Hundreds of thousands of Shiites, many beating their heads and chests and flogging their backs with chains, were in Karbala to mourn Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed's grandson, who was beheaded in 680 AD by an Omayyad caliph.
The gathering, banned under the 24-year rule of Saddam Hussein, had been marked by only minor anti-American protests in recent days as pilgrims flocked from all over Iraq to this city 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad.
But trucks with megaphones started Tuesday night to ply the esplanade here, announcing a large, peaceful demonstration Wednesday against the occupation by US-led forces who ousted Saddam's regime on April 9.
"Neither America, nor Saddam. Yes, yes to Islam," said the announcement, before the demonstration that was to leave from the southern gate of Hussein's Mausoleum.
Organizers of the pilgrimage had said they expected millions of people to come to Karbala, but eyewitnesses doubted the figure topped one million. Still Shiite leaders were satisfied their message had been received.
"They (the Shiites) are an oppressed people who freed themselves from their chains and showed the world here that Muslims are united against any power that seeks to control them," said Sheikh Raed Haidari, one of the organizers.
While the Shiites were railing against the Americans, Garner went into the third day of his mission as Washington's pointman for rebuilding postwar Iraq, continuing a tour of northern Iraq and conferring with Kurdish leaders.
Garner held talks Tuesday with the heads of the two main Kurdish factions, Jalal Talabani from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Massud Barzani from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
Talabani told reporters Wednesday that the talks had confirmed an agreement to set up a panel to handle disputes between Arabs and Kurds displaced from their homes under Saddam.
"There will be a committee later representing all sides under the guidance of the United States to arrange how people must go back home in a regular way not in chaos," he said.
The 65-year-old Garner then flew from Talabani's base in Suleimanyah to Arbil, where he was greeted by Barzani, other KDP officials and children wearing traditional dress.
"I suppose we can make all Iraq like Kurdistan," Barzani told Garner through an interpreter. The American responded: "We'll do this together." Garner underlined Tuesday US hopes for a unified Iraqi government grouping the nation's rival ethnic, tribal and religious groups, including the PUK and KDP which have controlled northern Iraq since the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war.
"The new government of Iraq will have one leader, one army, one government," he said.
The US Central Command said Tuesday that leaders of Iraqi groups which opposed Saddam would meet in Baghdad on Saturday for US-sponsored talks. But they gave no details.
US officials held a first meeting in Ur, near the southern city of Nasiriyah, on April 15 to lay the groundwork for the creation of a new Iraqi government.
But a key opposition figure, Ahmad Chalabi, stayed away from that gathering, as did the Iran-based Supreme Assembly for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), the main Shiite opposition group - Sapa-AFP
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