Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets in state-organized marches on Saturday, vowing to defend President Saddam Hussein from a U.S. invasion as the clock ticked toward war. From the Shi'ite Muslim cities of southern Iraq which rose up against Baghdad after the 1991 Gulf War to Saddam's stronghold of Tikrit, men, women and children marched and chanted support for the Iraqi leader. In Baghdad, the crowd burned a U.S. flag. "We are your soldiers, Saddam, where will America get through?" youths chanted in Karbala, home of the Shi'ite shrine of Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Mohammad who died in battle fighting overwhelming odds.