Oscar winner blasts 'fictitious president' on Iraq war

Politics grabbed centre stage at the Academy Awards today as maverick director Michael Moore charged President George W Bush with waging a "fictitious war" against Iraq.

Winning the Best Documentary Feature award for his anti-gun film Bowling for Columbine, Moore appeared on stage backed by other nominees in the category.

Referring to his colleagues as people who preferred fact to fiction, Moore described Bush as a fictitious president.

"We live in a time with fictitious election results that elect fictitious presidents," he said. "We live in a time when we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons."

Wagging his finger from the stage, to both applause and boos from the audience, Moore said; "We are against this war, Mr Bush. Shame on you" as the music came up and began to drown him out.

Moore won the Oscar for best documentary for Bowling for Columbine, a provocative film on the roots of gun violence in America, whose title refers to the Colorado high school where two students massacred 13 people before killing themselves in 1999.

Moore's outburst shattered the restraint that had marked today's Oscar ceremony where many celebrities wore discreet peace pins or peace doves on their gowns and tuxedos but otherwise kept their opinions largely to themselves.

Moore had given virtually the same speech when he won an Independent Spirit Award for Bowling for Columbine on Saturday, but then he had been greeted only with cheers.

Moore, author of the controversial but best-selling Stupid White Men, which attacks Bush and senior figures in his administration, told reporters backstage at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre: "I'm an American and you don't leave your citizenship when you enter the doors of the Kodak Theatre. That's what's great about being an American."

"I say tonight I put America in a good light. I showed how vital it is to have free speech in this country."

Moore however said he did not think the Oscar ceremony should have been postponed because of the war with Iraq. Oscar organisers spent much of the week agonizing over whether to go ahead or not, and decided to ax the glitzy red carpet arrivals to tone down the party atmosphere.

"I think it is important to have the Oscars and after all isn't that what we were fighting for - our American way of life? What could be more American than the Oscars," he told reporters.

- REUTERS