From Elizabeth Taylor to Madonna, from Gore Vidal to John le Carre, many celebrities are voicing their frustration over Washington's apparent rush toward a war against Iraq.

"I don't want to go to war ... and it just seems inevitable at the rate they're going," said Hollywood legend Taylor on CNN's Larry King Live recently. In London, actor Dustin Hoffman used an awards ceremony to blast U.S. President George W. Bush, saying his government was manipulating the grief of Americans after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

"For me as an American, the most painful aspect of this is that I believe that the administration has taken the events of 9-11 and has manipulated the grief of the country and I think that's reprehensible," Hoffman said.

"I believe ... that this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil."

Material mom Madonna is set to release an anti-war music video. Her publicist Liz Rosenberg says the video will depict the "catastrophic repercussions and horror of war."

"It is an anti-war video, but the purpose of the video, as with a lot of Madonna's work, is to be thought provoking."

Madonna's ex-husband Sean Penn did some thought-provoking work in December - he visited Baghdad on a fact-finding mission, enraging officials in Washington.

"It's very hard to me to believe that the American people could find a justification" for war, the actor-director said during the trip.

The celebrities added their voices to the anti-war campaign as top United Nations weapons inspectors looked for ways to disarm Iraq without resorting to war.

"We think in our hearts, we believe that we need to avoid war, not only to prove that inspections can work but because war is a sign of failure," said Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency after he and Hans Blix, the chief arms inspector, went to Baghdad last weekend.

They want more time to search for banned weapons in Iraq and more co-operation from Baghdad, but Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have said they won't support an open-ended inspection regime.

"Can I ask Prime Minister Blair and President Bush to tell us why, if the weapons inspectors are asking for more time in order to be able to disarm (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein, they are not doing it?" asked model-turned-social activist Bianca Jagger.

"The real reason for this war is . . . oil. It will be blood for oil and not only the blood of Iraqis but the blood of British and American people."

Singer Sheryl Crow is baffled by the U.S. policy.

"I sometimes have to wonder if this urgency to get into a war has anything to do with what is going on in our own backyard - with regard to the highest government leaders' involvement in such big business scandals as Enron and Worldcom, or with the lack of interest in campaign promises made such as health reform and senior citizens' bill of

rights," she said.

In early December, more than 100 celebrities including Martin Sheen, Jessica Lange, Kim Basinger and Uma Thurman wrote a letter to Bush protesting his threat to invade Iraq.

"A pre-emptive military invasion of Iraq will harm American national interests," they wrote on behalf of the group Artists for Winning Without War. "We reject the doctrine - a reversal of long-held American tradition - that our country, alone, has the right to launch first-strike attacks."

Although film stars with liberal pro-Democratic sympathies have associated themselves with anti-war movements over the decades, the political right still has a presence in Hollywood.

Some prominent actors did not lend their names to Artists for Winning Without War. Charlton Heston and Tom Selleck, known for their conservative views, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of the most visible Republicans in show business, did not sign the letter.

Whether the political comments of celebrities have any impact on public opinion is a matter of debate, but it has seldom stopped famous people from speaking out when they have the spotlight.

Opponents of the war are sensitive to allegations that they are sympathizers of Saddam.

With considerable sarcasm, British author le Carre wrote: "Those who are not with Mr. Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam's downfall - just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy."

Asked about Washington's calls for a "regime change" in Baghdad, American novelist Gore Vidal told a television interviewer last week that he would rather replace "the junta in Washington."

Vidal, le Carre and others are concerned about the humanitarian cost of a war on Iraq.

UN officials have warned that a war and its aftermath could injure more than half a million Iraqis, halt the country's oil production and create nearly a million refugees. They also predicted that some three million of Iraq's 23 million people could face hunger.

Independent aid workers, including a Canadian-led group, have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.

"While it is impossible to predict both the nature of any war and the number of expected deaths and injuries ... casualties among children will be in the thousands, probably in the tens of thousands and possibly in the hundreds of thousands," Eric Hoskins, leader of the

Canadian team, said in a report last month.

"Why must the children of Iraq die by the thousands to stop a tyrant?" asked rocker Dave Matthews. "It is not justice."

The poet laureate of Canada, George Bowering, also has spoken out against the war.

"I think it's my duty," Bowering said in an interview published last week. "I still have remainders of my childhood Christianity and I can't understand how anybody could get Christianity and military imperialism on the same page. It doesn't seem right to me."

Bowering is among those who have contributed to the 100 Poets Against the War anthology published on the Internet.

Anti-war sentiments have also appeared in professional sports.

At a media appearance with NBA all-star players last week, Steve Nash of Victoria, point guard for the Dallas Mavericks, wore a T-shirt with the image of someone shooting a basket. The inscription: No War. Shoot for Peace.

Nash said the shirt was from friends among a student activist group at the University of British Columbia.

In Australia, where Prime Minister John Howard has taken a staunch pro-American stance, celebrities have been in the forefront of anti-war protests.

"He's blindly following Bush, like a sheep, into a pit and who knows what the repercussions may be," said actress Toni Collette. She and actress Judy Davis have urged Howard to become an American citizen.

Bush said Monday he won't let the Iraqis suffer any longer under Saddam, whom he called their true enemy.

Actor-director Richard Gere is skeptical.

"America has never paid any attention to other people, so it's absurd for Bush to say that it's all in the best interests of the Iraqi people," Gere said at the Berlin Film Festival.

"If the United States marches into Iraq without the backing of the United Nations, that will be done entirely without the backing of the American people."