Stars oppose war with Iraq

More than 100 Hollywood celebrities - including Matt Damon, X-Files stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny and the REM rock group - yesterday endorsed a declaration against a pre-emptive strike on Iraq.

At the launch of Artists United to Win Without War, in a Los Angeles cafe used for film industry parties, the performers said they were alarmed at the Bush administration's intolerance which they said was stifling debate on a war.

"The war talk in Washington is alarming and unnecessary," the letter says.

"We are patriotic Americans, who share the belief that Saddam Hussein cannot be allowed to possess weapons of mass destruction," it goes on.

"A pre-emptive military invasion of Iraq will harm American national interests."

The declaration has also been endorsed by the actors Kim Basinger and Samuel L Jackson.

Some, such as Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, and Martin Sheen, have been identified with political causes in the past. The allegiances of the others had remained more private.

If Hollywood had been thought of as cautious in the past about coming out against a war on Iraq, the reasons for hesitation were in clear evidence yesterday.

There was plenty of talk of patriotism from Martin Sheen, who plays a television president in the drama The West Wing.

"We are trying to arouse a true patriotism," he told reporters yesterday before speaking on why President Bush feels compelled to go to war.

"I think he would like to hand his father Saddam Hussein's head."

But despite couching the event in patriotic terms, one of the organisers, Mike Farrell, who played the surgeon BJ Hunnicut in MASH, faced aggressive questioning from the Hollywood Reporter and a local television affiliate, asking whether it would be correct to oppose a war.

Organisers said they would not be cowed. After winning the support of performers, they said they planned to organise among Hollywood's other pillars: the producers and directors.

The declaration - the product of a four-week email and lobbying campaign - is to be published in US newspapers today.

The organisers said they timed their debut to coincide with other signs of opposition to a war on Iraq, with the leading civil rights organisation, the NAACP, expected to issue its own declaration this week.

"This speaks to the fact that there are literally millions and millions of people throughout the country who have grave doubts," said Farrell.