January 8, 2006

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Activist Cindy Sheehan told supporters at a peace forum Saturday that troops would get out of Iraq if millions of U.S. citizens took the simple step that she did outside President Bush's vacation home last summer.

"Anybody could do what we did in Crawford, Texas. We just went down and sat down," Sheehan told the crowd of several hundred people, with Academy Award-winning actor Sean Penn in the front row.

She urged them to lose their apathy and do something. "We have to get so freakin' fed up with what's going on that we all go and sit down," Sheehan said.

Sheehan, a Berekley resident whose 24-year-old soldier son died in Iraq, attracted hundreds of anti-war protesters to her makeshift camp near Bush's ranch in August.

"These people, they're not going to change unless they see us out in the streets," she said at the forum that organizers said was among dozens of town hall-style events held across the nation.

Penn, an early opponent of the war who drew criticism for his visit to Iraq, said he is buoyed by recent efforts in Congress to rein in the president's powers and bring troops home, and by the outraged response to disclosures that the government had wiretapped without obtaining warrants.

"When we said, 'Listen to us' - they're doing it through covert surveillance," Penn joked. He read his brief remarks from a single crumpled piece of paper and said it "probably looks like the administration's war plan."

Deborah Johns of nearby Roseville, who heads Northern California Marine Moms, said most people support the troops in Iraq. However, she said the president and news media have done a poor job showing the troops' progress.

Johns led Sheehan opponents on a 21-state caravan to Bush's ranch last fall.

"I saw thousands of people who came out to thank our men and women," Johns said in a phone interview Saturday. "I don't think that sort of grass-roots effort is out there that Cindy Sheehan would like people to believe. It's a fantasy."

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.