24 Wis. Communities Vote for Iraq Pullout

Thousands of voters turned out in Wisconsin to offer a purely symbolic but heartfelt message: Bring the troops home from Iraq.

By margins overwhelming in some places and narrow in others, voters in 24 of 32 communities approved referendums Tuesday calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Joy Kenworthy, 78, of Madison, doesn't mind that the nonbinding referendums have no bearing on federal policy. She was one of more than 24,300 voters in the state capital who gave 68 percent support to a referendum calling for the pullout.

"I thought this war was ill-advised from the moment it started," she said.

In addition to Madison, those communities supporting the measures included the Milwaukee suburbs of Shorewood and Whitefish Bay, and the western city of La Crosse. Those voting down the measure included the northwestern city of Hayward and the south-central city of Watertown, where 75 percent of voters disapproved.

Most of the referendums asked if the voters supported withdrawing the troops immediately, and Evansville also had one urging support of President Bush, which voters rejected.

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