Members of a left-wing coalition called Iraq Solidarity Campaign carried placards saying, ``End the U.S. occupation of Iraq'' -- the same message delivered by hundreds of thousands of peace activists who took to the streets of Asia, Europe and the United States over the weekend.

Some solemn, others noisy, many of the protests drew smaller-than-anticipated crowds -- far short of the millions who protested the Iraq invasion in March 2003 and the anniversary in 2004.

``Together with the thousands of people who rallied in Sydney, Istanbul, London and the US, we are, on the third anniversary of occupation, calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the giving of real independence, sovereignty and democracy to the Iraqi people,'' said Herbert Docena, a protester in Manila.

Anti-war protests on Sunday included a 1,000-strong rally in Seoul, where demonstrators urged the South Korean government to bring their troops home.

In Malaysia's largest city, Kuala Lumpur, about 600 people protested peacefully, unlike a gathering last year when police used a water cannon to disperse demonstrators. In Tokyo, about 800 demonstrators took to the streets, after some 2,000 protested the day earlier.

In the United States, police in Portland, Oregon, estimated 10,000 people turned out for a Sunday march through downtown, while about 200 people in New York City marched down Fifth Avenue with signs including ``We the People Need to do More to End the War.''

About 200 war veterans, hurricane survivors and others walked from Mobile, Alabama, to a rally in New Orleans, Louisiana, complaining that the military conflict had drained resources needed for rebuilding cities devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

``We attacked a country who never did anything to us,'' said Philadelphia resident Al Zappala, whose 30-year-old son was killed in Iraq in April 2004.

Hundreds of anti-war protesters also marched silently through the capital of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Caribbean territory, carrying 49 symbolic caskets representing the number of soldiers from the island who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Australia, where 500 people chanted anti-war slogans in Sydney on Saturday, the respected Age newspaper said in an editorial Monday that the anniversary should cause the Australian government to contemplate the cost of the country's long-standing security pact with Washington.

``On the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we have the chance to reflect whether part of the price means being involved in an ill-conceived war,'' the paper said in an editorial.

The paper did not call for an end to the pact, and said withdrawing troops too quickly would be wrong. But it urged Canberra to be more stringent in questioning Washington's motives and talk on Iraq.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld answered critics of the war in a guest column in Sunday's Washington Post newspaper, asserting that if Americans were to turn away from Iraq now, it would be ``the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis.''

U.S. President George W. Bush marked the anniversary Sunday by touting efforts to build democracy in Iraq. He avoided any mention of the continuing daily violence there and didn't utter the word ``war.''

``We are implementing a strategy that will lead to victory in Iraq,'' Bush said in a brief statement to reporters outside the White House.