NEW YORK – About a dozen anti-war protesters were arrested Tuesday during a demonstration against U.S. President George W. Bush's speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

"I want Bush and Cheney arrested," said Ben Maurer of Brooklyn, one of the protesters who knelt on the sidewalk in a planned act of civil disobedience before being handcuffed by police and put in a van.

The arrestees were among about 400 people opposing the Bush administration's war in Iraq, and its incarceration in Guantanamo Bay of more than 300 men on suspicion of terrorism or links to Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Many in the crowd wore orange jumpsuits in solidarity with the Guantanamo detainees.

The protesters demonstrated near the UN and then marched downtown, accompanied by a heavy police escort, for another rally at Washington Square Park.

"I'm sick to my stomach about the war in Iraq," said Anastasia Gomes, 22, of Queens. "We as the youth are standing up and saying this president does not represent us.''

The crowd was a mix of college students and veterans of anti-Vietnam War protests.

"I've been doing this for 40 years," said Gail Lindenberg, 58, of Manhattan. "I'm very troubled that for many years the United States as an international power continues with very little resistance.''

Members of the anti-war group Code Pink symbolically arrested a person wearing a Bush mask and chanted, "What do we say? Arrest the criminal!''

In his speech, Bush announced new sanctions against the military dictatorship in Myanmar, accusing it of imposing "a 19-year reign of fear" that denies basic freedoms of speech, assembly and worship.

A White House spokesman, asked to comment on the protest, issued a statement that said: "One of the most basic and precious rights our Constitution guarantees its citizens is the right to peacefully protest and express one's views. It is something that certain leaders annul in their own countries but willingly take advantage of here.''

The protesters shouted "End the war!" and "Defend the Constitution!" as they marched to Washington Square Park.

Office workers and tourists watched as the demonstrators paraded past Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library.

"We see that the Americans don't like Bush," said Tina Schmitz, a visitor from Cologne, Germany. "I think it's okay that people say what they think.''

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Yolanda Brown, on her lunch break from a midtown fast food restaurant, said she wished she could join the protest.

"I never voted for Bush," she said. "What is the war for? Nothing.''

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