More than 200 people were arrested across the United States on Wednesday as protesters marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq obstructed downtown traffic and tried to block access to government offices.

There were 32 arrests in Washington after demonstrators attempted to block entrances to the Internal Revenue Service, while 30 others were arrested outside a congressional office building, police said.

Protesters had hoped to shut down the IRS, the U.S. tax collection agency, to highlight the cost of the war. Police cleared the building's entrances within an hour.

(Article continues below)

In San Francisco, long a center of anti-Iraq war sentiment, police arrested more than 100 people who protested through the day along Market Street in the central business district, a spokesman said.

Sgt. Steve Maninna said officers had arrested 143 people on charges including trespassing, resisting arrest and obstructing traffic.

Four women were also detained for hanging a large banner off the city's famous Golden Gate Bridge and then released, said bridge spokeswoman Mary Currie.

On Washington's National Mall, about 100 protesters carried signs that read: "The Endlessness Justifies the Meaninglessness" and waved upside-down U.S. flags, a traditional sign of distress.

"Bush and Cheney, leaders failed, Bush and Cheney belong in jail," they chanted, referring to U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Full article here.