Gibson hits out at war in Iraq17/03/2004 - 15:29:23 Mel Gibson...

Gibson hits out at war in Iraq


17/03/2004 - 15:29:23

Mel Gibson has become the latest in a line of celebrities to question the Iraq War.

The usually-conservative movie star-director said he had been having “doubts” about President George Bush.

“It’s all to do with these weapons (of mass destruction) that we can’t seem to find, and why did we go over there?” he asked.

Usually a Bush supporter, Gibson said a lot of what the President had done during his term in office had been “good”.

But he said in the WABC radio interview that he had been “having my doubts of late”.

Gibson is riding a new wave of fame at the moment with the massive success of his film, The Passion of the Christ.

Despite some controversy and claims of anti-Semitism the story of Christ’s crucifixion has been a huge hit at the box office.

Other Hollywood stars have spoken out against the war including Dustin Hoffman, Sean Penn, Martin Scorsese, Danny Glover and Martin Sheen.

Hoffman said: “This war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil.”

At the last Oscars, Fog of War director Errol Morris said in an acceptance speech: “Forty years ago this country went down a rabbit hole in Vietnam and millions died. I fear we are going down a rabbit hole once again.”

Meanwhile, Gibson said in the interview that he planned another religious film.

He wants to tell the story of a Jewish rebellion nearly 200 years before the birth of Christ, which led to the festival of Chanukah.

“The story that’s always fired my imagination … is the Book of Maccabees,” Gibson said in the radio interview.

“It’s about Antiochus, the king who set up his religion in the Temple, and forced them all to deny the true God and worship at his feet and worship false gods.

“The Maccabees family stood up, and they made war, they stuck by their guns, and they came out winning,” he said.

“It’s like a Western.”

By making that film Gibson might answer his critics who have branded The Passion as anti-Semitic.

Some Jewish leaders feared that the graphic depiction of Jews nailing Christ to the cross would stoke anti-Semitic feelings.