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Grandmothers kicked their legs, pointed their canes and sang reworded show tunes in Times Square yesterday during a boisterous protest against the war in Iraq .

“There’s no business like war business,” the women sang to a familiar tune as one of them performed her choreographed moves with the aid of a walker. “Keep on building all those guns and armaments, and let’s get on with the war.”

The group, which calls itself the Granny Peace Brigade, staged the protest 15 yards south of the United States Armed Forces Recruiting Station. The Times Square traffic island had been a slippery rink of ice before organizers broke up the hazardous terrain.

The women wore yellow buttons distinguishing them as members of the brigade, which has launched a series of protests advocating a swift withdrawal of troops from Iraq and holds weekly vigils at Rockefeller Center .

“We’re concerned for the next generation,” said Barbara Harris, 69. “I don’t do this for myself. I’m an old-time activist.”

Eighteen of the grandmothers who demonstrated yesterday had pled not guilty to disorderly conduct charges resulting from a similar action outside the Times Square recruiting booth last Oct. 17.

“If the DA wants to prosecute them and put them on trial,” said their lawyer, Norman Siegel, “then we’ll put the war on trial.”

In the earlier protest, the women, ranging in age from 49 to 90, attempted to enlist at the recruitment booth in place of young people who would otherwise die in vain, they said. When they found the door locked, as it was today, the women sat with their backs to the booth until they were gingerly handcuffed, driven to the Midtown North Precinct and held for four and a half hours, said Siegel, whose motion to dismiss the charges is pending.

After the song-and-dance routine, the grandmothers’ voices moved to a minor key. “Where have all the flowers gone?” they chanted. “Long time passing.” They placed flowers and black heart-shaped cutouts onto a mock coffin draped in a U.S. flag.

At one point, a passing truck driver called out, “Remember 9/11!”

“No connection!” the protesters called back, referring to doubts about the link between the Sept. 11, 2001 , attackers and Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq .

The demonstration, which included an impersonation of Barbara Bush and a dramatic monologue, was unaided by a sound system, but it drew a crowd of about 30 people including several media members, and passersby in taxis and on foot paused to watch.

In the U.S. military recruitment booth, the enlistment officers sat in the warmth of their four cubicles—one each for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — while the outside temperature dipped below 30.

“It’s a free country,” said an Army recruiter in a green camouflage uniform, as he watched the assembly. “They can agree with or disagree with whatever they want.”

After the performance, aggrieved mother Sue Neiderer stood in front of the booth and attempted to enter, but she too found the door locked. Her son, Army 1st Lt. Seth Dvorin, was 24 when he died attempting to defuse an improvised explosive device in Iraq two years ago.

“Reality hurts,” said Neiderer, a Hopewell , N.J. , resident arrested in 2004 for heckling Laura Bush at a campaign event. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Draped over her shoulders were two color posters she’d made especially for the protest. One image showed her son slipping a ring onto the hand of Kelly Harris Dvorin in 2003. Above the picture was written, “President Bush killed my son.”

The demonstrators then left Times Square and walked to the office of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, at 48 th Street and Third Avenue, to deliver a “Bill of Particulars,” calling on Clinton to use her “considerable influence to demand an immediate end to the war.”