(Susan Sarandon) fearing for safety after death threats over her Iraq Stan [View All]

[Robbien]

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In the ITV interview, Sarandon told Dimbleby there should have been more public debate before the war, but that anyone questioning the government’s policy was labelled “un-American” and had smear campaigns and death threats levelled at them. “I don’t think I ever thought someone would ever really kill me, although there were some people who said ‘I’d like someone to knock her off’ on the radio and stuff like that,” she said.

“I don’t think I thought I’d really never work again, but when there is nobody else, when you look out on the field and everybody is quiet and they’re all looking away and nobody’s saying anything, it’s a really scary place to be.”

The actress, who is hoping to play the role of American mother Cindy Sheehan, whose protest over her son’s death in Iraq became global news, also criticised President Bush for hijacking the 9/11 attacks to justify the Iraq war.

“I’m a New Yorker, I was there,” she said. “I saw the buildings go down, my kids were in school, I rounded them up through the smoke and everything else. I had friends on that first plane.

“Every time something happens, the Bush administration tries to play that card.”

Sarandon also condemned the Democrats for failing to stand up to the Bush administration’s war machine in the run-up to the 2004 presidential elections. “There was no reason for Hillary Clinton, for instance, to vote , for John Kerry to vote, they were protecting their reputations – they didn’t want to seem un-American.

“They crumbled under the pressure of that moment and it was a very lonely, very scary time to ask a question. “That’s a horrible condition to exist in a democracy.”

http://www.sundayherald.com/55447