This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Posted: 3:13 PM- Though gathered in numbers smaller than at anti-war rallies of the past, the protesters assembled today in Salt Lake City to mourn the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war had something this year that they haven't enjoyed before: Majority support for their cause.

"Today we stand proudly with a majority of Americans who want - actually who demand - we bring our troops home now," Tom Goldsmith, minister at the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City, told a crowd of about 600 protesters gathered at the City-County Building.

Police had expected as many as 5,000 demonstrators.

Recent polls show a majority of Americans support a withdrawal of troops within a year. And pessimism about the Iraq mission appears to have extended even into conservative Utah, where in a January poll sponsored by The Salt Lake Tribune, just 41 percent of respondents said they support President Bush's handling of the Iraq war. That's a considerable drop from past Tribune polls that consistently marked majority support for the president's war management.

Goldsmith and other speakers credited hard-core anti-war activists with stoking the embers of dissent which have led to a new political climate. "Your views and activities over the past four years have finally revealed the lies that led us to war," he said.

More than 3,200 U.S. service members - including Utah soldier Brandon Parr, who was being remembered at a downtown Salt Lake City church even as protesters were assembling down the road - have died in Iraq. The Tribune has counted 35 Utahns and former Utahns who have been killed.