Hollywood actress warns US against war on Iraq

The Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon said yesterday that attacking Iraq was no solution to the terrorist attacks on the United States last year.

The Oscar-winning star of the film Dead Man Walking spoke out at the Edinburgh Festival, where she has been appearing with her husband, Tim Robbins, in a reading of a play about a firefighter caught in the events of 11 September.

Asked what she thought about President George Bush's plans to attack Iraq, Sarandon said she would not want America to go to war. "I don't think a military expansion of violence is the solution. First we have to ask the right questions and then you come up with a solution. I don't think we've yet formed the right questions. I still think they're trying to define who the enemy is."

The couple, who are known for their humanitarian views and support for left-wing causes, performed their final reading of The Guys by Anne Nelson at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh last night. They will present further readings at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin next week, where they expect the play to have special resonance because of the number of Irish people with relatives in the New York fire service. The work is based on a true story of how Nelson, a journalism lecturer, helped a fire captain compose eulogies for colleagues killed when the twin towers collapsed.

Sarandon and Robbins first performed the work in New York where they both live. It was originally staged with Sigourney Weaver, who is now starring in a film version, and Bill Murray.

The actress admitted that before the attacks most Americans had been protected from the kind of "inexplicable terrorist violence" experienced by many other countries. "The first thing I said to my children was, 'We have joined the rest of the world now'," she said.